^^ 


THB    PROPERTY   OF 


Studia   adolescentiam  alunt,  senectutem" 
oblectant. 


'a/i'^ 


'Lef 


6D 


Rev.  Dr.  McCOSH'S  WORKS. 


I.  The    Method  of   Divine    Government^ 

Physical  and  Moral.     8vo.     $2.50. 

"  We  regard  this  book  as  the  great  work  of  the  age.  It  will  have  its  place 
on  the  shelf  of  the  scholar  and  thinker  by  the  side  of  *  Butler's  Analogy,'  as 
long  as  there  shall  be  scholars  and  thinkers.  The  name  of  McCosh,  by  this 
work  alone,  is  entitled  to  a  place  of  unsurpassed  eminence  for  intellectual  vigor 
and  strength,  depth,  comprehensiveness  and  concentration  to  which  few  can  at- 
tain."— Presbyterian  of  the  West. 

II.  Typical  Forms  and  special  Ends  in 

Creation.     8m.     $2.50. 

"  It  is  alike  comprehensive  in  its  range,  accurate  and  minute  in  its  details, 
original  in  its  structure,  and  devout  and  spirited  in  its  tone  and  tendency.  It 
illustrates  and  carries  out  the  great  principle  of  analogy  in  the  Divine  plans  and 
works  far  more  minutely  and  satisfactorily  than  it  has  been  done  before  ;  and 
while  it  presents  the  results  of  the  most  profound  scientific  research,  it  presents 
them  in  their  higher  and  spiritual  relations." — Argus. 

III.  The  Supernatural  in  relation  to  the 

Natural.     Large  12mo.     $2.00. 

"  Eminently  a  book  for  the  day,  rich  in  scientific  knowledge,  cautious  in  an- 
alysis and  induction,  candid  in  its  treatment  of  opponents,  and  triumphant  in 
its  refutation  of  arrogant  unbelievers." — Watchman  and  Reflector. 

IV.  T/ie  Intuitions  of  the  Human  Mind^ 

Inductively  considered.     8,1)0. 

"  Dr.  McCosh  stands,  by  general  confession,  in  the  front  rank  of  living  met- 
aphysicians. His  first  work  on  '  The  Method  of  the  Divine  Government  '  is 
the  ablest  treatise  on  that  subject  in  the  English  Language,  and  a  second  work 
on  *  Typical  Forms  and  Special  Varieties '  was  a  most  original  and  profound 
contribution  to  Natural  Theology.  His  present  work  is  an  application  of  the 
laws  of  induction  to  the  facts  of  consciousness,  accepting  the  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness as  the  internal  sense  which  opens  to  man  the  spiritual  world,  as  sen- 
sation opens  to  him  the  material  world." 


New  York  :   Robert  Carter  &  Brothers. 


Extracts  from  British  Reviews  of  Dr.  M'Cosh's 
"Intuitions  of  the  Mind." 

"The  uiulcrtaking  to  adjust  llic  claims  of  the  sensational  and  intuitional 
philosophies,  and  of  the  a  posteriori  and  a  priori  methods  is  not  only  legitimate 
but  accomplished  in  this  work  with  a  great  amount  of  success. —  Westminster 
Reviezv  for  April,  1865. 

"  Dr.  McCosh  very  justly  describes   intuition  as  the  capacity  the  mind  has 
of  perceiving  objects  and  truths  at  once  without  a  process.      This  may  seem  to 
imply  that  the  intuition  is  above  law  or  simply  a  law  unto  itself.     But  the  case 
is  not  so ;  and  the  author  has  evinced  great  skill  in  his  attempt  to  show  that 
it  is  not  so.      The  book  gives   a  very  wholesome  check   to  some  mischievous 
tendencies  of  thought  too  prevalent  among  us." — Brit.  Ouar.  Review  ApL,  1865 
"  No  philosopher  before  Dr.  McCosh  has  clearly  brought  out  the  stages  by 
which  an  original  and  individual  intuition  passes  first  into  an  articulate  but  still 
individual  judgment,  and    then  into   a   universal   maxim  or  principle;   and  no 
one  has  so  clearly  or  completely  classified  and  enumerated  our  intuitive  convic- 
tions, or  exhibited  in  detail  their  relations  to  the  various  sciences  which  repose 
on  them  as  their  foundations.     The  amount  of  summarized  information  which 
it  contains  is  very  great ;   and  it  is  the  only  work  on  the  very  important  subject 
with  which  it  deals.      Never  was  such  a  work  so  much  needed  as  in  the  present 
day.      It   is  the   only  scientific  work  adapted  to   counteract   the  materialistic 
school  of  Mill,  Bain  and  Herbert  Spencer,  which  is  so  steadily  prevailing  among 
the  students  of  the  present  generation." — Land.   Ouar.  Review  for  April,  1865. 
"  This  work  is  especially  a  development  of  the   philosophy  of  Reid.     It 
breathes  throughout  the   spirit   of  that  true    modern  Socrates,   the  spirit   of 
candor    and  modest   interpretation    of    nature.    Its  chief   scientific    merits    we 
conceive   to    be    its    discrimination   between   the   intuitions  considered  as  reg- 
ulative .principles,    as    concrete     facts    and     as    abstract    general    laws ;    and 
its  correct  appreciation   of  the     relative  position  of  these   a   priori   elements 
and    our   faculties.      To    these   we    might   add  its    definite    conception  of  the 
sphere  of  metaphysical  inquiry,  its   logical    arrangement,  its  clear  and  succinct 
historical  notices  of  systems,  and  its  acute  and  searching,  though  not  unfriendly 
criticisms  on  current  opinions." — Brit,  and  For.  Evang.  Review,  April,  1865. 
"  As  a  thinker  Dr.  McCosh  has  the  rare  and  inestimable  faculty  of  construct- 
ive thought;   not  contenting  himself  with  taking  the  dimensions,  or  even  repair- 
ing the  flaws  of  other  men's  building  ;   but  raising  tier  after  tier  of  solid  masonry 
on  his  own  account.     His  work  on  "  The  Intuitions  of  the  Mind  "  seems  to 
us  the  noblest  contribution  made  to  the  speculative  philosophy  of  Scotland  since 
the  days  of  Reid.      We  have  not  forgotten  what  is  due  to  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton.    As  a  metaphysical  critic  and  logician  Sir  William  stands  Jacik  princeps 
among  Scottish  philosophers  of  the  nineteenth  century.      But  if  he  defined  and 
defended  the  philosophy  of  consciousness  Sir  William   Hamilton  did  little   to 
extend  its  domain;   and  only  in  the  book  we  have  mentioned  do  we  find  the 
work  commenced  by  Reid  carried  positively  forward." — Peter  Bayne,  Esq.  in 
Witness  (Edinburgh). 


THE 


INTUITIONS  OF  THE  MIND 


INDUCTIVELY   INVESTIGATED. 


BY   THE 


REV.    JAMES   M'COSH,    LL.  D., 

pnOFKSSOK   OP  LOGIC   AND   METAPHT8ICS   IN   QTTEEn'S   COLLEGE,   BELFAST;    AtTTUOR   OF 
'•THE  METHOD   OF  THE   DIVINE   GOVERNMENT   PHTSICAL   AND  MOKAL." 


!^ew  and  Bevi$e4  Bdition. 


NEW  YORK: 
ROBERT  CARTER  &  BROTHERS, 

No.  630   BROADWAY. 

1867. 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION. 

There  is  a  constant  reference  in  the  present  day  to  intuition. 
It  is  surely  desirable  to  have  it  ascertained  what  intuition  is.  But 
if  this  is  to  be  done  satisfactorily,  it  must  be  done  carefully,  it  must 
be  done  elaborately. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  work  to  determine  the  precise  nature  of 
intuition,  by  which  I  mean  the  capacity  which  the  mind  has  of  per- 
cei\ing  objects  and  truths  at  once  without  a  process.  But  in  accom- 
plishing this  end,  I  have  had  to  find  out  the  mode  in  which  intuition 
operates,  and  the  laws  which  it  obeys,  to  distinguish  between  it  and 
associated  exercises,  and  to  settle  what  it  can  do  and  what  it  cannot 
do  ;  and  this  could  be  done  only  by  a  painstaking  study  of  the  human 
mind. 

In  forming  my  opinions,  I  have  had  before  me  the  speculations  of 
eminent  philosophers,  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  These  I 
have  subjected  to  a  sifting,  but,  I  trust,  candid  examination.  I  have 
so  constructed  the  work  as  to  put  collateral  criticisms  in  Preliminary 
and  Supplementary  Chapters  and  Sections,  printed  in  smaller  type. 

I  claim  to  have  so  far  caught  the  spirit  of  those  who  have  gone 
before,  and  whom  I  might  be  disposed  to  copy,  that  I  am  resolute 
to  maintain  my  independence,  and  I  have  not  scrupled  to  state  where- 
in I  differ  from  those  whose  writings  have  yielded  me  the  most  valu- 
able suggestions.  While  attending,  as  in  duty  bound,  to  the  views 
of  others,  my  appeal  is  ever  to  the  operations  of  the  human  mind  as 

(V) 


vi  PREFACE. 

alone  fitted  and  entitled  to  settle  disputed  questions  ;  and  I  do  not 
profess  to  follow  tlie  teachings  of  any  doctor  of  the  past  or  present 
time,  nor  to  belong  to  any  school  except  that  which  looks  to  the  facts 
of  our  mental  nature. 

In  several  points  I  have  received  much  benefit  from  the  high  erudi- 
tion, the  unsurpassed  logical  power,  and  the  (often)  profound  obser- 
vation of  the  late  Sir  William  Hamilton.  I  am  the  more  bound  to 
make  this'  acknowledgment  from  the  circumstance,  that  I  have  often 
felt  myself  constrained  to  criticise  some  of  his  favourite  doctrines- 
more  particularly  those  which  he  has  adopted  from  Kant — as  fitted 
(so  I  think)  to  unsettle  the  foundations  of  knowledge,  and  as  being 
actually  employed  by  able  and  influential  thinkers  to  establish  a 
deadly  theory  of  nescience. 

The  First  Edition  of  this  work,  while  the  result  of  long  reflection, 
was  written  out  for  the  press  rather  hurriedly.  I  am  grateful  to  the 
public  for  calling  me  to  issue  a  Second  Edition,  in  which  I  have  cor- 
rected the  errors  which  crept  into  the  first,  expounded  my  views 
more  clearly  and  fully,  and  supported  them  by  further  critical  Notes 
and  Sections. 


COlfTENTS. 


INTRODUCTIOK 

FAGB 

Aim  of  the  Work  and  Method  op  Inquiry,    ......        1 


f  itrt  Jfirsi 


GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE   INTUITIVE 
CONVICTIONS  OF  THE  MIND. 

BOOK    I. 

GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS  REGARDING  INTUITIONS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

NEGATIVE  PROPOSITIONS. 

Sect.    i.  No  Innate  Mental  Images  or  Representations,     .        .        .        .11 

Sect.   ii.  No  Innate  Abstract,  or  General  Notions, 14 

Sect.  hi.  No  A  Priori  Forms  imposed  by  tlie  Mind  on  Objects,       .        .       16 
Sect.  rv.  The  Intuitions  are  not  immediately  before  Consciousness  as 

Laws  or  Principles, 18 

CHAPTER  II. 

POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS. 

Sect.    i.  There  are  Intuitive  Principles  operating  in  the  Mind,        .        .      20 
Sect.   ii.  The  Native  Convictions  of  the  Mind  are  of  the  Nature  of  Per- 
ceptions or  Intuitions, 25 

Sect.  in.  Intuitive  Convictions  rise  on  the  Contemplation  of  Objects 

lircscnted  or  represented  to  the  Mind,        ....       25 

(Yii) 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Sect.  it.  The  Intuitions  of  the  Mind  arc  primarily  directed  to  Individual 

Objects, 2G 

Sect.  v.  The  Individual  Intuitive  Convictions  can  be  generalized  into 
Maxims,  and  these  are  entitled  to  be  represented  as  Philo- 
sophic Principles, 38 

BOOK    i  I. 

CHARACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS  AND  METHOD  OF 
EMPLOYING  THEM. 

CHAPTER  I. 

MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES  OP  INTUITIONS. 

Sect.    i.  Tests, 31 

Sect.  ii.  Different  Aspects  of  Intuitions,  and  their  Tlijaretical  Char- 
acters,    3^ 

Sect.  in.  Certain  Misapprehensions  in  regard  to  the  Character  of  Intui- 
tive Convictions, 46 

Sect.  iv.  Certain  Practical  Characteristics, 49 

CHAPTER  II. 

METHOD  OF  EMPLOYING  INTUITIVE  PRINCIPLES. 

Sect.  i.  The  Spontaneous  and  Reflex  Use  of  Intuitive  Principles, .  .  53 
Sect.  n.  Sources  of  Error  in  Metaphysical  Speculation,  .  .  .  .58 
Sect.  in.  Conditions  of  the  Legitimacy  of  the  Appeal  to  Intuitive  Prin- 

cijiles, 63 

Sect.  iv.  Method  of  Investigating  and  Interpreting  our  Intuitions, .  .  71 
Sect.   v.  What  Explanation  can  be  given  of  the  Intuitions  of  the  Mind,      77 


CHAPTER  III. 

(SUPPLEMENTARY.)— BRIEF  CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS  IN  RE- 
GARD TO  INTUITIVE  TRUTHS, 


CONTENTS.  ix 

PARTICULAR  EXAMINATION  OF  THE  INTUITIONS. 

BOOK    i. 

PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

BODY  AND  SPIRIT. 

PAGE 

Sect.    i.  The  Mind  begins  its  Intelligent  Acts  with  Knowledge.     The 

Simple  Cognitive  Powers, 101 

Sect.   ii.  Our  Intuitive  Cognitions  of  Body, 103 

Sect,  hi.  Some  Distinctions  to  be  attended  to  in  regard  to  our  Cognition 

of  Body, 113 

Sect.  rv.  (Supplementary.) — Brief  Histm-ical  Slcetch  of  Opinions  as  to  the 

Veracity  of  the  Senses, 123 

Sect.   v.  The  Qualities  of  Matter  known  by  Intuition,     ....  124 

Sect.  vt.  Our  Intuitive  Cognition  of  Self  or  of  Spirit,     ....  127 

CHAPTER  II. 

ANALYSIS  OF  OUR  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS. 

Sect.       i.  {Preliminary.) — On  the  Nature  of  Abstraction  and  Generaliza- 
tion,      135 

Sect.      ii.  On  Being, 138 

Sect.    in.  On  Substance, 140 

Sect.     iv.  On  Mode,  Quality,  Property,  Essence, 147 

Sect.      v.  On  Personality, 154 

Sect.     yi.  On  Extension, 156 

Sect.   vii.  On  Number, 157 

Sect.  viii.  On  Motion, 158 

Sect,     ix.  On  Power, 160 

Sect.      x.  {Supplementary.)— The  Various  Kinds  of  Power  Mown  ly  Ex- 
perience,        160 

BOOK    II. 

PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS. 

CHAPTER  I, 
Their  Generai  Nature,  ,        .       .       .        • 167 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  n. 

PAGB 

Space  and  Time, 1"^^ 

CHAPTER  in. 
The  Infinite, 186 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Extent,  Tests,  and  Power  op  our  Native  Beliefs,      .        .        .    203 

BOOK  I  I  I. 

PRIMITI^rE  JUDGMENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
Their  General  Nature,  and  a  Classification  of  them,      .        .        .    206 

CHAPTER  II. 

RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED  BY  THE  MIND. 

Sect.       i.  Relation  of  Identity, 212 

Sect.      ii.  Relation  of  Whole  and  Parts, 216 

Sect.     hi.  Relations  of  Space, 218 

Sect.     it.  Relations  of  Time, 230 

Sect.      v.  Relations  of  Quantity, 230 

Sect.     vi.  Relations  of  Resemblance, 223 

Sect.    vii.  Relations  of  Active  Preperty, 224 

Sect.  viii.  Relation  of  Cause  and  Effect, 225 

BOOK    IV. 

MORAL  CONVICTIONS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  MOTIVE  AND  MORAL  POWERS. 

Sect.  i.  The  Appetencies,  tlie  Will,  and  the  Conscience,  ....     243 
Sect.  u.  {Supplementary.) — On  the  Beautiful, 249 

CHAPTER  II. 

CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  THE  EXERCISES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

Sect.     i.  Convictions  as  to  the  Nature  of  Moral  Good,     ....  252 

Sect.   n.  On  Sin  and  Ei-ror,       .         .         .         .       • 357 

Sect.  in.  Relation  of  Moral  Good  and  Happiness, 261 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Freedom  of  the  Will, 266 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


INTUITIVE  PRINCIPLES  AND  THE  VARIOUS  SCIENCES. 


BOOK    I. 

METAPHYSICS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Metaphysics,  Gnosiology,  akd  Ontology, 


PAGE 

273 


CHAPTER  II. 

GNOSIOLOGY. 
Sect.    i.  On  Knowledge, 380 

Sect.  ii.  On  the  Origin  of  our  Knowledge  and  Ideas,  ....  283 
Sect.  m.  Limits  to  om*  Knowledge,  Ideas,  and  Beliefs,  ....  290 
Sect.  iv.  Kelation  of  Intuition  and  Experience,  .  .  .  .  .  294 
Sect.   v.  On  the  Necessity  attached  to  our  Primary  Convictions,      .        .    299 

Sect.  vi.  {Supplementary.) — On  the  Distinctions  letween  the  Tjiiderstanding 
and  the  Reason  ;  letween  ii  jariori  and  a,  posteriori  Princi- 
ples ;  leticeen  Form  and  Matter ;  tetween  Subjective  and 
Objective;  between  the  Logical  and  Chronological  Order  of 
Ideas;  between  the  Cause  and  Occasion  of  Innate  Ideas,      .     30G 

CHAPTER  III. 

ONTOLOGY. 

On  Knowing  and  Being, 312 

On  Idealism, 316 

On  .Scepticism, 327 

On  the  Conditioned  and  the  Unconditioned,    ....  335 
{Supplementary.) — The  Antinomies  of  Kant.,     ....  333 
{Supplementary.) — On  the  Relativity  of  Knoioledge., .        .        .  340 
{Supplementary.) — Examination  of  Mr.  J.  8.  MilVs  Metaphy- 
sical System., 341 

{Supplementary?) — Tlie  Nescience  Theory  ;  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  344 


Sect. 

I. 

Sect. 

n. 

Sect. 

m. 

Sect. 

rv. 

Sect. 

V. 

Sect. 

VI. 

Sect. 

vn. 

Sect. 

vni. 

BOOK    11. 

METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  INVOLVED  IN  THE  SCIENCES. 

CHAPTER  I. 
Distinction  between  the  Demonstrative  or  Formal  and  the  Mate- 
rial OR  Inductive  Sciences, .    348 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  11. 

THE  MENTAL  SCIENCES. 

PAGH 

Sf.ct.     I.  Classification  of  the  Mental  Sciences, 353 

Sect.   ii.  Logic, 354 

Sect.  hi.  Ethics, 357 

CHAPTER  III. 

Mathematics,    .               361 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Intuitive  Principles  in\'olved  in  the  Physical  Sciences,  .        .        .  367 

CHAPTER  V. 

APPLICATION  TO  THEOLOGY. 

Sect.       i.  Faith  and  Reason, 370 

Sect.      ii.  Natural  Theology ;  The  Theistic  Argument,    ....  377 

Sect.     hi.  On  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul, 389 

Sect.     iv.  Pantheism, 393 

Sect.      v.  Anthropomorphism, 406 

Sect.     vi.  Cliristiau  Divinity, 410 

Sect.   yii.  Man  as  a  Religious  Being, 423 

Sect.  vin.  Rational  Theology, 42G 

Sect.     ix.  Intuitional  Theology, 427 

APPENDIX. 

On  Analytic  of  Logical  Forms, 443 

Index, •• 445 


INTEODUCTORY  NOTE. 

The  wiitings  of  Dr.  McCosli  are  so  well-known  in  Eng- 
land and  this  country,  and  have  made  such  a  definite  im- 
pression upon  students  in  philosophy,  that  it  is  a  super- 
fluous service  to  recommend  them  to  public  notice.  On 
issuing  this  new  and  improved  edition  of  his  work  upon 
the  Intuitions  of  the  Human  Mind,  it  may  not,  however,  be 
amiss  to  call  attention  to  a  few  of  the  characteristics  of  this 
latest  thinker  of  the  Scotch  school. 

The  first  feature  that  strikes  the  reader  is  the  fidelity  of 
the  author  to  his  nationality,  in  rejecting  all  idealism  in 
philosophy.  Realism  in  perception,  that  objects  have  an 
existence  independent  of  the  mind,  that  there  is  a  substance 
in  which  properties  inhere,  that  our  perceptions  of  God,  the 
soul,  and  even  of  infinity  and  eternity,  are  positive  and  not 
merely  negative ;  these  and  such  like  are  positions  taken 
by  this  writer  Avith  decision  and  maintained  with  power. 
In  this  particular,  we  regard  him  as  doing  an  excellent 
service  in  counteracting  the  influence  of  some  recent  specu- 
lations which  tend  to  unsettle  all  scientific  thinking,  and 
to  convert  the  highest  department  of  human  thought  into 
a  sphere  of  airy  and  unreal  fictions. 

Kindred  to  this  trait,  and  growing  out  of  it,  is  the  sober 

''xiii) 


xiv  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

and  moderate  tone  pervading  tlie  system.  Tliougli  holding 
a  liigli  estimate  of  pliilosophy  as  a  brancli  of  human  inquiry, 
he  does  not  fall  into  the  error  of  those  who  suppose  that  it 
is  capable  of  solving  all  problems,  and  becoming  a  system 
of  infinite  knowledge.  He  recognizes  the  limits  of  the 
human  mind,  and  refuses  to  push  his  inquiries  beyond  the 
region  of  clearly  ascertained  fact.  Though  treating  of  the 
intuitions  of  the  mind,  and  thus  laboring  in  that  particular 
division  of  philosophy  which  is  most  liable  to  degenerate 
into  imaginative  or,  at  best,  merely  speculative  notions, 
Dr.  McCosh  preserves  a  clear,  calm,  and  sober  intelligence. 
For  this  reason,  the  influence  of  such  a  treatise,  upon  the 
student,  is  most  salutary,  in  forming  that  rare  mental  tem- 
per which  in  Hooker  has  received  the  epithet  "  judicious," 
and  in  Locke  that  of  "  sensible." 

In  respect  to  the  great  themes  of  morals  and  religion,  the 
writer  agrees  with  that  lofty  and  influential  class  of  think- 
ers, from  Plato  to  Kant,  who  believe  that  genuine  philoso- 
phy is  in  harmony  with  man's  religious  needs  and  instincts, 
and  that  true  views  of  man  are  impossible  without  true 
views  of  God.  He  has  no  sympathy  with  those  shallow 
methods  and  those  slight  draughts  at  the  fountain  of  sci- 
ence, which  Lord  Bacon  assures  us  lead  to  skepticism. 
This  treatise  is  an  aid  to  faith.  It  oj^poses  sensationalism 
and  materialism  of  every  fomi ;  it  rejects  and  refutes  the 
selfish  theory  of  morals  ;  and  it  defends  with  strong  reason- 
ing the  fundamental  principles  of  theism  and  ethics. 

The  reader  will  find  in  this  volume  a  very  minute  and 
careful  analysis  of  several  of  the  functions  of  the  human 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE.  xv 

soul,  particularly  of  tlie  sense-perceptions.  The  liist.ory  of 
many  pliilosopliical  opinions,  and  tlie  peculiarities  of  many 
philosophical  schools,  are  also  passed  in  review  in  the  notes 
to  the  work,  in  a  concise  yet  thorough  manner;  and  the 
criticisms  that  are  made  upon  several  of  the  celebrated 
theories  of  the  past  are  candid  and  exhaustive. 

That  a  treatise  in  philosophy  should  command  assent  in 
every  particular,  is  not  to  be  expected.  Some  will  think 
that  the  author  comprehends  too  much  under  the  notion 
of  an  intuition,  and  brings  some  perceptions  which  are 
mediate,  and  the  result  of  processes,  into  a  department  that 
should  be  confined  to  strictly  immediate  cognition.  Some 
will  prefer  the  Kantian  construction  and  definition  of  the 
ideas  of  space  and  time,  to  those  of  the  author.     But  after 

deducting  whatever  difference  of  opinion  may  arise  in  the 
minds  of  readers,  there  still  remains  a  large  and  solid 
amount  of  jDhilosophical  reflection  in  this  v^olume  which 
will  commend  itself  to  the  dispassionate  reason  of  all.  We 
know  of  no  better  book  to  be  employed  in  the  educational 
course,  and  hoj)C  that  it  may  obtain  a  wide  currency  amono 
the  seminaries  and  coEeges  of  the  land.  . 

W.  G.  T.  SHEDD. 


INTUITIONS  OF  THE  MIND. 


INTUITIONS  OF  THE  MIND. 

INTRODUCTION. 

AIM    OF    THE    WORK  AND    METHOD    OF   INQUIRY. 

According  to  one  class  of  speculators,  the  mind  derives  all  its 
knowledge,  judgments,  maxims,  from  observation  and  experience. 
According  to  anotlier  class,  there  are  ideas,  truths,  principles, 
which  originate  in  the  native  power,  or  are  seen  in  the  inward 
light  of  the  mind.  These  mental  principles  have  been  called  by 
a  great  number  of  names,  such  as  innate  ideas,  intuitions,  neces- 
sary judgments,  fundamental  laws  of  belief,  principles  of  common 
sense,  first  or  primitive  truths  ;  and  very  diverse  have  been  the 
accounts  given  of  them,  and  the  uses  to  which  they  have  been 
turned.  This  is  a  controversy  which  has  been  from  the  beginning, 
and  which  is  ever  being  renewed  in  one  form  or  other.  It  appears 
to  me  that  this  contest  is  now,  and  has  ever  been,  characterized 
by  an  immense  complication  of  confusion ;  and  confusion,  as  Bacon 
has  remarked,  is  more  difl&cult  to  rectify  than  open  error.  I  am 
not,  in  this  treatise,  to  plunge  at  once  into  a  thicket,  in  which 
so  many  liave  lost  themselves  as  they  sought  to  find  or  cut  a 
way  through  it.  But  my  aim  throughout  is  to  ascertain  what 
are  the  actual  perceptions  or  laws  in  the  mind  pointed  at  by  these 
various  plirases,  what  is  their  mode  of  operation,  what  the  rule 
which  they  follow,  and  what  the  purposes  which  they  are  competent 
to  serve. 

As  the  result,  it  will  appear  that  there  arc  in  the  mind  such 
existences  and  powers  as  primary  perceptions  and  fundamental  laws 
of  belief,  but  that  they  are  very  different  in  tlieir  nature  from  the 
1  (n 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

account  wliicli  is  frequently  given  of  them,  and  that  they  are  by  no 
means  fitted  to  accomplish  the  ends  to  which  they  have  often  been 
turned  in  metaphysical  and  theological  speculation.  I  would  as 
soon  believe  that  there  are  no  such  agents  as  heat,  chemical  affinity, 
and  electricity  in  physical  nature,  as  that  there  are  no  immediate 
perceptions  and  native-born  convictions  in  this  mind  of  ours.  I 
consider  the  one  kind  of  agents,  like  the  other,  to  be  among  the 
deepest  and  most  potent  at  work  in  this  world,  mental  and  material ; 
and  yet  the  one  class,  like  the  other,  while  operating  every  instant  in 
soul  or  body,  are  apt  to  hide  themselves  from  the  view.  Indeed 
they  discover  themselves  only  by  their  effects,  and  their  law  can  be 
detected  only  by  a  careful  observation  of  its  actings  ;  and  it  should 
be  added,  that  both  are  capable  of  evil  as  well  as  good,  and  are  to 
be  carefully  watched  and  guarded  in  the  application  which  is  made 
of  them. 

The  prejudice  against  native  and  necessary  principles  has  arisen 
to  a  great  extent  from  the  extravagant  account  which  has  been 
rendered  of  them,  and  from  the  vain,  the  ambitious,  and  often 
pernicious  purposes  which  they  have  been  made  to  serve.  It  is 
to  be  hoped,  that  by  a  clear  determination  of  their  exact  nature,  and 
of  the  rules  of  their  operation,  and  by  a  judicious  exposition  of  the 
method  by  which  alone  they  can  bo  discovered,  and  of  the  restric- 
tions which  should  be  laid  on  their  employment,  the  feeling  against 
them  on  tlie  part  of  so  many,  pliilosophers  and  non-philosophers, 
may  be  dispelled  ;  while  at  the  same  time  rash  speculators  may  be 
prevented  from  using  them  for  the  furtherance  of  pretentious  ends  to 
which  they  have  no  legitimate  reference. 

In  inquiring  into  the  evidence  of  their  existence,  into  the  place 
which  they  hold  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  into  the  laws  by 
which  they  are  guided,  and  the  way  in  which  they  manifest  them.- 
selves,  I  am  to  proceed  throughout  in  the  Method  of  Induction.  I 
profess  to  prosecute  the  investigation  in  the  way  of  the  observation 
of  facts — with  an  accompanying  analysis  and  coordination,  but  still 
of  facts,  which  have  been  carefully  collected.  It  has  often  been 
shown  that  the  mctliod  of  induction  admits,  mutatis  mutandis,  of  an 
application  to  the  study  of  the  human  mind,  as  well  as  to  that 
of  the  material  universe.    The  difference   in  the  application  lies 


INTBODVCTION.  3 

mainly  in  this,  that  in  the  one  case  we  use  self-consciousness  or  the 
internal  sense,  whereas  in  the  other  we  employ  the  external  sense,  as 
the  organ  or  instrument.  I  certainly  do  not  propose  to  find  out  the 
intuitions  of  the  mind  by  the  bodily  eye,  aided  or  unaided  by  the 
microscope,  nor  discover  their  mode  of  operation  by  the  blowpipe. 
They  are  in  their  nature  spiritual,  and  so  sense  cannot  see  them,  or 
hear  them,  or  handle  them,  nor  can  the  telescope  in  its  widest  range 
detect  them.  Still  they  are  tliere  in  our  mental  nature  ;  there  is  an 
eye  of  wider  sweep  than  the  telescope,  and  more  searching  than  the 
microscope,  ready  to  be  directed  towards  them.  By  introspection  we 
may  look  on  them  in  operation  ;  by  abstraction  or  analysis  we  may  sepa- 
rate the  essential  peculiarity  from  the  rough  concrete  presentations  ; 
and  by  generalization,  we  may  rise  to  the  law  which  they  follow.^ 

But  let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  Tlie  method  pursued,  as  it  is 
not  on  tlie  one  hand  to  be  confounded  with  an  ambitious  transcen- 
dentalism which  declines  to  ask  help  from  observation,  so  it  is  as  little 
on  the  other  hand  to  be  identified  with  a  miserable  sensational 
empiricism.  I  do  not  expect  to  discover  what  are  the  native  prin- 
ciples of  the  mind  by  a  priori  speculation,  but  neither  do  I  profess 
by  observation  to  lay  or  construct  a  foundation  on  wiiich  to  rear 
fundamental  truth.  I  am  not,  therefore,  to  be  lightly  cluirgcd  with 
a  contradiction,  as  if  I  resorted  to  experience  for  a  basis  or  ground 
of  principles  which  I  represent  as  original  and  independent.  I 
employ  induction  simply  as  a  mean  or  method  of  finding  laws  which 
are  prior  to  induction,  otherwise  induction  could  not  find  them. 
Experience  is  not  supposed  by  me  to  furnish  the  ground  of  necessary 
truth ;  all  that  it  can  do  is  to  supply  the  facts  which  enable  us 
to  discover  the  truth,  and  that  tlie  trutli  is  necessary.  I  allude  to 
this  objection,  not  with  tlie  view  of  formally  meeting  it  here,  but  in 
order  to  show  that  it  has  not  been  overlooked,  and  then  adjourn  the 
discussion  of  it  to  its  appropriate  place.  It  will  come  out,  in  the 
course  of  our  survey,  that  while  there  are  regulative  principles  in 

1  In  professing  to  follow  tlic  Method  of  Induction,  I  use  tlm  phraso  as  Bacon  did  in  a 
lar(;e  sense,  as  standing;  for  that  whole  mode  of  procedure  which  begins  with  the  observa- 
tion of  facts,  and  makes  its  final  appeal  to  facts  as  establisiiinir  the  law.  But  in  this 
process  there  may  bo  a  deductive  element;  as  when  we  suppose  that,  the  law  is  so  and 
so,  that  is,  devise  an  hypothesis,  and  inquire  what  consequences  would  follow,  always 
>vith  the  design  of  trying  these  results  by  facts,  and  adopting  the  alleged  law  only  when  it 
can  stand  the  test. 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

tlie  mind,  operating  altogether  independently  of  anj'  reflex  notice  wc 
may  take  of  tliem,  and  not  depending  for  tlieir  authority  on  our 
induction  of  thcni,  it  is  at  the  same  time  true  that  they  can  become 
known  to  us  as  general  principles  only  by  inward  observation,  and 
can  be  Icuitimately  employed  in  philosopliic  speculation  only  on  the 
condition  of  being  rigidly  inducted.  By  observation  we  may  rise  to 
the  discovery  of  mental  principles  Avhich  do  not  in  themselves  depend 
on  observation,  but  which  have  a  place  in  our  constitution  anterior 
to  our  observation  of  them,  and  are  there,  as  observation  discovers, 
native,  necessary,  and  universal. 

In  some  respects,  it  is  an  unfortunate  time  for  giving  forth  such 
a  work  to  the  world.  Every  ago,  like  tlie  seed,  is  at  one  and  the . 
same  time  the  product  of  combined  influences  in  the  past,  and  tlie 
germ  of  life  for  the  future.  In  this  present  age,  two  manner  of- 
principles,  each  of  the  character  of  a  different  parent,  are  struggling 
for  the  raastery  ;  the  one  earth-born,  sensational,  empirical,  utilita- 
rian, deriving  all  ideas  from  the  senses,  and  all  knowable  truth  from 
man's  limited  experience,  and  holding  tliat  man  can  be  swayed  by  no 
motives  of  a  higher  order  than  the  desire  to  secure  pleasure  or  avoid 
pain  ;  the  other,  if  not  heaven-born,  at  least  cloud-born,  being  ideal, 
transcendental,  pantheistic,  attributing  man's  loftiest  ideas  to  inward 
lio-ht,  appealing  to  principles  which  are  discovered  without  the 
trouble  of  observation,  and  issuing  in  a  belief  in  the  good,  instead 
of  a  belief  in  God.  Each  of  these  views  has  its  keen  partisans, 
either  violently  attacking  one  another,  or  regarding  each  otlier  with 
silent  contempt,  while  the  great  body  of  reading  men  are  professedly 
indifferent, — those  who  claim  to  be  neutral,  however,  being  all  the 
■while  unconsciously  in  the  service  either  of  the  one  or  other,  com- 
monly of  the  lower  or  earthly,  just  as  those  who  profess  to  belong 
neither  to  God  nor  Mannnon,  do  in  fact  belong  to  Mammon. 

What  then  can  be  expected  of  the  reception  of  such  a  work  in 
such  an  age  ?  A  large  body,  even  of  tlie  thinking  portion  of  the 
community,  are  prejudiced  against  all  such  discussions,  as  fruitless 
of  fj-ood  in  every  circumstance,  and  in  some  forms  productive  of 
mischief.  I  suspect  the  great  mass  of  those  who  call  themselves 
practical  men,  and  the  majority  of  those  addicted  to  the  study  of 


IX  TR  OD  UCTION.  5 

the  pliysical  scIcuccl-,  will  be  farther  prepossessed  against  this  treatise 
as  defending  a  doctrine  which  they  thought  had  been  long  ago  and 
for  ever  exploded  by  Locke.  Ou  the  other  hand,  those  most  inclined 
to  favour  such  pursuits  are  commonly  committed  and  pledged  to 
extreme  views,  and  can  scarcely  be  expected  to  look  with  a  favour- 
able eye  on  a  work  which,  professedly  built  on  pure  observation, 
declines  to  follow  any  school ;  indeed,  proclaims  that  as  schools  and 
sects,  with  their  separate  standpoints  and  watchwords,  have  long  ago 
ceased  in  physical  science,  so  it  is  time  they  should  disappear  in  the 
field  of  mental  science  likewise,  that  those  who  prosecute  the  study, 
calling  no  man  master,  may  look  without  prepossession  into  the  volume 
spread  out  before  them  in  their  own  soul,  and  read  it  with  the  eye  of 
consciousness.  Nearly  all  confessed  metaphysicians  will  assert  that 
I  am  degrading  high  philosophy  in  making  it  submit  to  the  method 
of  induction,  and  that  the  restrictions  which  I  would  impose  upon 
speculation  must  deprive  it  of  its  most  fascinating  charms  ;  while 
hundreds  of  eager  youths,  walking  hopefully  on  the  high  a  'priori 
road,  and  expecting  that  the  next  turn — which  they  already  see  not 
far  in  front — must  open  on  the  great  ocean  of  absolute  truth,  will 
feel  as  if  they  were  unmercifully  stopped  and  turned  back  at  the 
very  time  when  the  long  looked-for  scene  was  about  to  burst  glori- 
ously on  their  view. 

But  regarded  nnder  some  other  aspects,  this  is  an  age  in  which 
such  a  work  (I  would  on  this  account  as  well  as  many  others  it  were 
only  worthy  of  its  subject)  is  especially  needed.  Every  nation 
awakened  to  intelligence  must  have  a  philosophy  of  some  description. 
Whatever  men  may  profess  or  affect,  they  cannot  do  without  it  in 
fact ;  and  if  any  age  or  country,  arrived  at  civilization,  will  not  form 
or  adopt  a  high  and  elevating  philosophy,  it  must  fall  nnder  the 
powxr  of  a  low  and  a  debasing  one.  It  frequently  happens  that  a 
profession  of  contempt  for  all  metaphysics  as  being  barren  and 
unintelligible,  is  an  introduction  to  a  discussion  which  is  metaphysical 
without  the  parties  know^ing  it  (as  the  person  in  the  French  play 
had  spoken  prose  all  his  life  without  being  aware  of  it)  ;  and  of 
such  metaphysics  it  will  commonly  be  found  that  they  are  futile  and 
incomprehensible  enough.  Often  is  Aristotle  denounced  in  language 
borrowed  from  himself,  and  the  Schoolmen  arc  disparaged  by  those 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

who  arc  all  tlic  -wliilc  using  distinctions  wliidi  tlicy  have  cut  with 
sharp  chisel  in  the  rock,  never  to  be  efluced.  Thcic  are  persons 
speaking-  witli  contempt  of  Plato,  Descartes,  Locke,  and  all  the  meta- 
physicians, who  arc  taking  advantage  of  the  great  truths  which  they 
hare  discovered.  It  could  easily  be  shown  that  in  sermons  from  the 
pulpit,  and  orations  in  the  senate,  and  pleadings  at  the  bar,  and  even 
in  common  conversation,  principles  are  ever  and  anon  appealed  to 
which  have  come  in  ages  long  gone  by  from  the  heads  of  our  deepest 
thinkers,  who  may  now  be  forgotten  by  all  but  a  few  antiquarians  in 
philosophy.  Natural  science  itself,  in  the  hands  of  its  most  advanced 
votaries,  is  ever  touching  on  the  borders  of  metaphysics,  and  compel- 
ling physicists  to  rest  on  certain  fundamental  convictions  as  to 
extension  and  force.  The  truth  is,  in  very  proportion  as  material 
science  makes  progress,  do  thinking  minds  feel  the  need  of  something 
to  go  down  deeper  and  mount  up  higlier  than  the  senses  can  do  ;  of 
some  means  of  settling  tliose  anxious  questions  which  the  mind  is 
ever  putting  in  regard  to  the  soul,  and  the  relation  of  the  universe  to 
God,  and  of  finding  a  foundation  on  which  the  understanding  can 
ultimately  and  confidently  repose.  Whatever  the  superficial  may 
think,  philosopliy  is  an  underlying  power  of  vast  importance,  because 
of  mighty  influence.  It  is  because  it  is  fundamental  and  radical,  that 
it  is  unseen  by  the  vulgar,  who  notice  only  what  is  upon  the  surface. 
Let  us  see  that  the  foundation  be  Avell  laid,  tliat  tlie  root  be  prop- 
erly placed.  That  foundation  must  be  secure  which  is  laid  in  our 
mental  constitution  ;  that  is  the  proper  root  which  is  planted  by 
our  Maker. 

In  determining  the  precise  nature  of  the  mental  intuitions,  we  may 
hope  to  be  able  to  settle  what  they  can  do,  and,  as  no  less  important, 
what  they  can  not  do.  Thus  do  I  hope  to  contribute  my  little  aid  in 
elevating  the  low,  and  in  bringing  down  tlie  presumptuous  tendencies 
of  the  age  ;  tluis  would  I  raise  the  downward,  and  at  the  same  time 
lower  the  proud  look  ;  thus  would  I  keep  men  on  the  one  hand  from 
poring  for  ever  on  the  dust  of  the  earth,  and  on  the  other  hand  from 
attempting,  Icarus-like,  to  mount  in  a  flight  which  must  issue  in  a 
lamentable  fall.  Thus  would  I  seek  to  raise  the  view-position  of 
some  reckoned  by  themselves  and  others  the  wiser  and  more  sober, 
who  are  digging  for  ever  in  the  mere  clay  of  material  existence,  and 


INTRODUCTION.  m  7 

who,  believing  in  nothing  but  what  can  be  seen  and  touched,  never 
rise  to  the  contemplation  of  moral  and  spiritual,  of  immutable  and 
eternal  truth  ;  and  thus  too  would  I  save  the  more  promising  of  our 
intellectual  youths  from  falling  under  the  power  of  a  boasting  a 
priori  intuitionalism,  which  is  alluring  them  on  by  gilded  clouds, 
which  will  turn  out  to  be  damp  and  chill  after  they  have  taken 
infinite  pains  to  climb  to  them  and  to  enter  them. 

In  Europe  and  the  United  States  of  America,  thought  is  in  a 
restless  and  transition  state.  In  Germany,  the  high  transcendental 
or  dialectic  method  has  wrought  itself  out — has  cropped  to  the 
surface  in  thinness  and  brittleness.  In  the  reaction,  eminent  profes- 
sors of  the  Hegelian  school  are  lecturing  to  half-empty  benches  ;  and 
books,  which,  had  they  been  published  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
would  have  moved  thought  to  its  greatest  depths,  can  now  find  little 
sale,  few  readers,  and  no  believers  ;  while,  in  the  absence  of  a  judi- 
cious pliilosophy,  accepted  and  influential,  a  plausible  materialism, 
acknowledging  no  existence  but  matter  and  force,  has  made  consider- 
able progress,  on  the  pretence  of  furnishing  what  the  old  metaphysics 
never  yielded,  something  tangible  and  therefore  solid.  In  the  English- 
speaking  nations,  there  has  been  for  a  considerable  time,  especially 
among  certain  meditative  and  impulsive  youths,a  recoil  against  Locke- 
ism,  and  the  bony  and  haggard  forms  of  physicism,  which  have  become 
denuded  of  all  truth,  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious,  transcending 
sense  and  experience,  and  a  tendency  towards  an  idealism  which,  all 
decked  and  radiant,  is  seeking  to  win  them  to  its  embrace  ;  but  of 
late  this  spirit  seems  to  be  giving  way  to  a  revived  sensationalism, 
which  would  explain  all  tliought  by  experience,  and  reduce  all  virtue 
to  utility.  And,  turning  away  from  all  these  old  speculative  ques- 
tions, there  are  eminent  men  in  Germany,  in  France,  and  England 
who  would  explain  mental  phenomena  by  physiological  processes.  If 
premature  theories  are  not  constructed,  and  inferences  are  kept  from 
outrunning  facts,  the  researches  prosecuted  are  worthy  of  all 
encouragement,  and  we  may  expect  to  find  them  rewarded  sooner  or 
later  by  a  less  or  larger  measure  of  success.  But  it  is  never  to  be 
forgotten  that  whatever  explanation  the  brain,  nerves,  and  physical 
forces  may  furnish  of  the  rise  of  certain  states  of  mind,  they  can 


8  ♦        INTRODUCTION. 

rcnilor  no  account  of  peculiarly  mental  facts,  such  as  consciousness, 
intelligence,  emotion,  the  appreciation  of  beauty,  and  the  sense  of 
moral  obligation.  These  must  ever  be  studied  by  self-consciousness, 
and  not  by  any  method  of  sensible  observation,  or  of  weighing  and 
measuring ;  and  the  results  reached  by  careful  self-inspection  can 
never  be  set  aside  or  superseded  by  any  inquiry  into  unconscious  and 
unthinking  forces.  In  particular,  physiology  can  never  settle  for  us 
the  nature  of  intuition  as  an  exercise  of  mind,  nor  determine  the 
ultimate  laws  of  thought  and  belief.  It  is  surely  possible  and  con- 
ceivable in  these  circumstances  that  there  may  be  some  wearied  of 
the  din  of  the  old  metaphysical  disputes,  and  feeling  that  the  highest 
physics  cannot  yield  a  philosophy  of  the  mind,  who  may  be  prepared 
to  welcome  an  earnest  but  unpretending  attempt  to  discover,  not 
certainly  all  truth  (which  is  precluded  to  the  human  mind),  but  by  a 
sure  method,  that  of  internal  observation  and  experience,  a  sure 
foundation  of  primary  truth  laid  by  God  in  our  mental  constitution, 
on  which  other  truths  may  be  placed,  and  on  which  they  may  rest  so 
as  not  to  be  dislodo;ed. 


PAKT  FIRST. 

GENERAL  VIEW   OF  THE  NATURE   OF  THE 
INTUITIVE  CONVICTIONS   OF  THE  MIND. 

(9) 


BOOK  I. 

GENERAL    PROPOSITIONS     REGARDING 
INTUITIONS. 

CHAPTER   I. 
NEGATIVE  PROPOSITIONS. 

SECT.  I. — NO   INNATE   MENTAL   IMAGES   OR   REPRESENTATIONS. 

The  mind  of  man  has  the  power  of  imagining  or  representing,  in 
old  forms  by  the  memory,  and  in  new  forms  by  the  imagination, 
whatever  it  has  at  any  time  known  or  experienced.  To  this  mental 
property  the  Aristotelian  phrase  "  phantasy,"  in  use  till  last  century, 
and  revived  of  late  by  Sir  William  Hamilton,*  might  be  appro- 
priately applied,  and  then  we  should  have  the  old  term  "  phantasm  " 
(not  "  phantom,"  which  might  continue  to  denote  the  spectre)  ready 
to  designate  the  mental  result,  or  the  idea  in  consciousness.  Having 
seen  a  given  mountain,  I  can  recall  it  at  any  time.  Not  only  so, 
but  I  can  put  what  I  have  experienced  in  an  indefinite  number  of 
new  shapes  and  colours.  Having  seen  Mont  Blanc,  I  can,  when  it 
pleases  me,  bring  it  up  before  me  in  all  its  bulk,  supported  by  its 
snow-capped  buttresses  and  flanked  by  its  glancing  glaciers ;  but  I 
can  do  more,  I  can  picture  a  mountain  covered,  not  with  ice,  but 
with  silver,  or  a  mountain  reaching  up  to  the  moon.  I  can  repro- 
duce in  like  mode  whatever  lias  been  brought  under  my  notice  by 
any  of  tlie  other  senses.  I  can  recall  and  reconstruct  the  bodily 
sensations, — the  sounds,  the  colours,  the  tastes, — which  I  have  at 

'  See  his  edition  of  Reid's  Collected  Writings,  p.  291. 

(11) 


12  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

any  time  cxporicuccd.  Milton,  wlicii  he  wrote  Paradise  Lost,  had 
lost  t\ic  power  of  perceiving  colours,  but  he  had  still  the  capacity  of 
imagining  them  to  himself,  and  delineating  them  to  others,  as  he 
did  iu  his  picture  of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  A  late  distinguished  poet 
never  had  the  sense  of  smell,  except  for  one  brief  but  enjoyable 
space,  when  it  awoke  as  he  stood  in  a  garden  with  flowers  ;  but 
he  nnist  have  been  able  ever  after  to  realize  what  odours  meant. 
It  is  to  be  carefully  not(^  that  this  reproductive  power  reaches  not 
only  over  all  that  has  been  acquired  by  the  bodily  senses,  but  over 
all  that  has  been  obtained  by  consciousness  or  the  inward  sense.  I 
can  recall  the  joys,  the  hopes,  the  sorrows,  the  fears,  which  at  some 
former  time  may  have  moved  my  bosom.  I  can  do  more :  I  can 
picture  myself,  or  picture  others,  in  new  and  unheard-of  scenes  of 
gladness  or  of  grief.  Not  only  can  I  represent  to  myself  the  coun- 
tenance of  my  friend,  I  can  have  an  idea  of  his  character  and  dis- 
positions. I  can  form  a  mental  picture  of  the  outward  scenes  in 
which  Shakspeare  or  Walter  Scott  places  his  heroes  or  heroines ; 
but  I  can  also  enter  into  their  thoughts  and  feelings. 

But  all  these  ideas,  in  the  sense  of  phantasms,  are  reproductions 
of  past  experience  in  the  old  forms  or  in  new  dispositions.  He  who 
has  had  the  use  of  his  eyes  at  any  time  can  ever  after  understand 
what  is  meant  by  the  colour  of  scarlet,  but  the  person  born  blind 
has  not  the  most  distant  idea  of  it  in  the  sense  of  image,  and  if 
pressed  for  an  answer  to  the  question  what  he  supposes  it  to  be,  he 
can  come  no  nearer  the  reality  than  the  man  mentioned  by  Locke, 
who  likened  it  to  the  sound  of  a  trumpet ;  or  than  the  blind  boy 
of  whom  I  have  heard,  who  when  asked  whether  he  would  prefer 
a  lilac-coloured  or  a  brown-coloured  book,  offered  as  a  prize,  de- 
cided for  the  lilac,  as  he  supposed  it  must  resemble  the  lilac-bush, 
whose  odour  had  been  so  agreeable  to  him.  Having  experience  of 
cogitations  and  sentiments  of  our  own,  we  apprehend  and  appre- 
ciate those  of  others.  Having  a  spiritual  nature  ourselves,  we  can 
form  some  idea  of  that  Great  Spirit  in  whose  image  we  can  claim 
to  have  been  fashioned.  But  there  may  be  attributes  possessed  by 
God  of  which  we  can  form  as  little  idea  as  the  deaf  man  can  of 
sounds,  or  the  man  without  smell  can  of  odours;  for  they  may 
be  qualities  to  which  we  possess  nothing  like,  and  which  we  may 


BOOK  I.]  NEGATIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  13 

be  incapable  of  representing  even  in  imagination.  Niebuhr,  the 
traveller,  bad  often  brought  before  him  in  his  old  age  the  scenes 
of  Eastern  lands,  but  it  was  because  he  had  witnessed  them  in  his 
youth ;  and  even  we  who  have  never  been  in  those  countries  can 
so  far  understand  the  descriptions  in  his  travels,  because  we  have 
had  the  elements  of  them  in  our  own  experience  ;  but  there  may  be 
scenes  in  heaven  which  it  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart  of  man 
to  conceive,  inasmuch  as  nothing  similar  has  passed  under  his  notice 
in  this  lower  world. 

Now  the  proposition  advanced  in  this  section  is,  that  the  soul  is 
not  born  into  the  world  with  a  stock  of  such  phantasms,  ready  to 
come  out  on  occasions  presented.  I  rather  think  that  this  is  the 
sense  in  which  the  phrase  is  understood  by  those  who  give  Locke 
the  credit  of  exploding  the  doctrine  of  "  innate  ideas  "  for  ever. 
Taking  "  idea "  in  the  sense  of  "  image,"  they  say,  what  can  be  so 
unreasonable  as  to  suppose  that  the  mind  comes  into  the  world 
with  such  impressions  ready  to  start  forth,  like  writing  with  in- 
visible ink,  or  like  sun-pictures,  when  exposed  to  certain  chemical 
agencies  ?  Locke,  who  I  suspect  took  "  idea "  very  much  in  the 
sense  of  mental  image,  or  representation,  may  very  possibly  claim 
to  have  for  ever  set  aside  this  view.  But  iiis  credit  in  this  respect 
is  not  very  great  after  all.  For  I  rather  think  no  philosopher  of 
influence  ever  propounded  such  a  doctrine,  formally  or  explicitly. 
It  is  quite  conceivable,  indeed,  that  Plato  might  have  consistently 
held  some  such  view.  He  miglit  have  maintained  that  the  soul 
did  come  into  the  world  with  such  ideas ;  but  then  he  would  have 
ascribed  them  to  experience  acquired  in  a  previous  state  of  exist- 
ence. But  Plato's  doctrine  of  ideas,  while  I  believe  it  in  some 
aspects  to  be  as  true  as  it  is  sublime,  is  apt  to  run  into  myths  and 
fancies  in  the  expression,  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  give  a  thoroughly 
consistent  exposition  of  it.  By  "  idea  "  he  meant  a  pattern  in  or 
before  the  Divine  ]\Iind  from  all  eternity  ;  and  he  supposes  a  course 
of  philosophic  abstraction  to  be  quite  as  necessary  as  reminiscence 
to  call  up  such  an  idea  into  consciousness.  But  whether  the  view 
which  I  am  opposing  has  or  has  not  been  entertained  by  men  of 
eminence,  it  is  expedient  to  notice  it,  in  order  at  the  very  com- 
mencement to  remove  it  out  of  the  way  as  an  encumbrance. 


14  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [pakt  i 


•   SECT.  II. — NO  INNATE  ABSTRACT,  OR  GENERAL  NOTIONS. 

This  proposition  is  not  the  same  as  that  illustrated  in  last  sec- 
tion. A  mental  picture  of  a  mountain  is  one  thing,  and  a  general 
notion  of  tlie  class  mountain  is  a  very  different  tiling.  All  our 
cognitions  by  the  senses  or  the  consciousness,  and  all  our  sub- 
sequent images  of  them  in  memory  or  imagination,  arc  singular 
and  concrete ;  that  is,  they  are  of  individual  things,  and  of  things 
with  an  aggregate  of  qualities.  I  can  see  or  picture  to  myself  an 
individual  man  of  a  certain  form  or  character,  but  I  cannot  see 
nor  adequately  represent  in  the  phantasy  the  class  man.  I  can 
perceive  or  imagine  a  piece  of  magnetized  iron,  but  I  cannot  per- 
ceive or  imagine  the  polarity  of  the  iron  apart  from  the  iron. 

Still  the  mind  has  the  high  capacity  of  forming  abstract  and 
general  notions.  Out  of  the  concrete  it  can  form  the  abstract 
notion.  I  can  see  or  image  a  lily  only  as  with  both  a  shape  and 
colour,  but  I  can  in  thought  contemplate  its  whiteness  apart  from 
its  form.  Having  seen  a  number  of  beasts  with  four  limbs,  I  can 
think  about  a  class  of  animals  agreeing  in  this,  that  they  are  all 
quadrupeds.  It  appears  then  that  the  mental  image  and  the  abstract 
or  general  notion  are  not  the  same.  The  former  is  an  exercise  of 
the  reproductive  powers,  recalling  the  old  or  putting  the  old  in 
new  collocations.  The  other  is  the  result  of  an  exercise  of  thought, 
separating  the  part  from  the  whole,  or  contemplating  an  indefinite 
number  of  objects  as  possessing  common  qualities.  If  the  one  may 
be  called  the  pliantasm  ;  the  other,  in  contradistinction,  may  be 
denominated  the  notion  or  concept ;  or,  to  designate  it  more  un- 
equivocally, the  logical  notion  or  concept.^ 

But  it  is  quite  as  true  of  the  abstract  and  general  notions,  as  of 
the  mental  representations  of  the  individual,  that  they  are  not  in 
the  soul  when  it  comes  into  tlie  world.     It  has  been  the  avowed 

*  Aristotle  distinguished  between  phantasms,  (jiavTuG/iaTa,  and  notions  or  conceptions, 
vor/iiara  :  'Nofi/xara  Tivl  iioiaei  tov  /ztj  (pavTaajiaTa  elvai,  ?/  ov6e  ravra  (pavTua/xara,  iDCK  ovk 
uvEv  (pavTclcfiaTuv.  Distinguishing  thus  between  thought  and  phantasy,  he  says,  with  won- 
derful physiological  accuracy,  that  we  cannot  think  without  a  phantasm — oidsnoTS  voei 
uvev  (pavTuG/mro^  (De  Aniin.  iii.  7).  It  might  be  shown  that  Aristotle  was  not,  as  he  has 
been  often  represented,  a  nominalist ;  that  he  was  not  a  realist ;  and  that  his  doctrine  of 
the  common  notion  is  a  more  correct  one  thaa  the  ordinary  conceptualist  theory. 


BOOK  l]  negative  propositions.  15 

doctrine  of  the  great  body  of  philosophers,  that  the  mind  starts  with 
the  singular  f  and  it  is  quite  as  certain,  though  it  has  not  been  so 
generally  acknowledged,  that  it  commences  with  the  concrete.  All 
our  abstract  notions  are  the  result  of  a  process  in  which  we  separate 
in  thought  the  part  from  the  whole  ;  say  the  quality,  from  the  sub- 
stance presenting  itself  with  its  qualities— for  example,  transparency, 
contemplated  apart  from  the  transparent  ice  or  glass.  All  our 
general  notions  are  the  product  of  a  process  in  which  we  consider 
objects  as  possessing  common  attributes, — say  philosophers,  as  men 
agreeing  in  this,  that  they  are  seekers  of  wisdom. 

It  is,  as  I  reckon  it,  the  true  merit  of  Locke  that,  in  the  second 
book  of  his  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,  he  shows  how  in 
the  ideas  we  form  of  such  subjects  as  space,  time,  substance,  cause, 
and  infinity,  and  in  the  general  maxims  employed  in  speculation, 
such  as  that  "  it  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not 
to  be  at  the  same  time,"  there  is  involved  a  process  of  the  under- 
standing founded  on  a  previous  experience.^  It  will  be  acknowl- 
edo-ed  that  the  soul  is  not  born  into  the  world  with  such  abstract 


1  Aristotle  saj-s  that  by  the  senses  we  perceive  a  particular  thing  in  a  particular  place 
and  now  present: — to5s  ti.  kol  ttov  kcH  vvv.  In  sense-perception  we  perceive  the  sin- 
gular, and  in  science  the  universal :  —aladdveadai,  filv  yag  uvuyKT}  Kad'  ^Kaarov,  t]  &  Lnia- 
Tr,fxrj  -L)  Tu  icaOu/iOv  yvupli^eiv  tarl  {Anal  Post.  i.  31.)  Locke  is  constantly  declaring  that 
the  mind  begins  with  particulars. 

2  "Wherein  "lie  the  defects  of  Locke  will  come  out  as  we  advance  (see  more  especially 
Part  I.  Book  ii.  Chap,  iii.,  and  Fart  iii.  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  2) ;  but  I  think  he  is  invin- 
cible when  he  shows  that  children  do  not  start  with  general  maxims  consciously  before 
them,  and  that  savages  are  not  in  possession  of  them.  Thus,  speaking  of  the  maxim,  "  It 
is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be,"  he  says:  "  A  great  part  of  illiterate 
people  and  savages  pass  many  years  of  their  rational  age  without  ever  thinking  on  this 
and  the  like  general  propositions"  {Essay,  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  12).  "  There  is  no  knowl- 
edge of  these  general  and  self-evident  maxims  in  the  mind  till  it  comes  to  the  exercise  of 
reason"  {Ibid.  sect.  14).  Speaking  of  more  particular  self-evident  propositions,  which  are 
assented  to  at  first  hearing,  as  that  one  and  two  are  equal  to  three,  he  says  ;  "  They  are 
known  and  assented  to  by  those  who  are  utterly  ignorant  of  these  more  general  maxims, 
and  so  being  earlier  in  the  mind  than  those  (as  they  are  called)  first  principles,  cannot  owe 
to  them  the  assent  wherewith  they  are  received  at  first  hearing"  (sect.  19).  "  For  though 
a  child  quickly  assents  to  this  proposition,  that  an  apple  is  not  fire,  when  he  has  got  the 
ideas  of  these  two  different  things  distinctly  imprinted  on  his  mind,  and  has  learned  that 
the  names  apple  and  fire  stand  for  them,  yet  it  will  be  some  years  after  before  the  same 
child  will  assent  to  this  proposition,  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not 
to  be"  (sect.  23).  "  He  that  will  say  children  join  these  general  abstract  speculations  with 
their  sucking-bottles  and  their  rattles,  may  perhaps  with  justice  be  thought  to  have  more 
passion  and  zeal  for  his  opinion,  but  less  sincerity  and  truth,  than  one  of  that  age" 
(sect.  25).  "Such  kind  of  general  propositions  arc  seldom  mentioned  in  the  huts  of 
Indians  ;  much  less  are  they  found  in  the  thoughts  of  children,  or  any  impressions  of  them 
^n  the  minis  of  naturals"  (sect.  27). 


16  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

ideas  as  those  of  hardness,  or  organic  action,  or  life,  nor  such  general 
notions  as  those  of  mineral,  plant,  animal.  This  is  admitted  by  all. 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  the  soul  of  the  infant  has  not  yet  in  an 
abstract  or  general  form  those  ideas  which  certain  metaphysicians 
describe  as  innate,  as  those  of  the  ego  and  the  non-ego,  extension  and 
potency,  mind  and  matter,  cause  and  effect,  infinity  and  moral  good. 
Wc  reach  the  abstract  idea  of  hardness  by  specially  fixing  the 
attention  on  one  of  the  qualities  of  body.  In  like  manner,  in  order 
to  attain  the  idea  of  space,  it  is  necessary  to  separate  in  thought  the 
space  from  body  known  as  occupying  space.  We  get  the  idea  of 
bodily  substance  by  considering  the  permanent  being  apart  from  that 
which  changes  in  the  bodies  falling  under  our  notice.  It  is  one  of 
the  aims  of  this  treatise  to  specify  the  way  in  which  the  mind  gets 
these  ideas  in  the  concrete  and  singular.  But  for  the  present  I  am 
seeking  to  have  rubbish  removed,  that  there  may  be  free  and  secure 
space  whereon  to  lay  a  foundation.  And  I  think  it  of  vast  moment 
to  have  it  admitted  that  every  abstract  notion  implies  a  process  of 
separation,  that  every  general  notion  implies  a  process  of  comparison, 
and  that  both  one  and  other  proceed  on  a  previous  knowledge  which 
has  come  within  the  range  of  our  consciousness. 


SECT.  III.— NO  A  PRIORI  FORMS  IMPOSED  BY  THE  MIND  ON  OBJECTS. 

This  proposition  is  laid  down  in  opposition  to  a  view  which  has 
been  extensively  and  resolutely  entertained  of  late  years.  Traces 
of  it  in  a  looser  form  may  be  detected  at  a  nmch  earlier  date,  but 
it  may  be  regarded  as  formally  introduced  into  philosophy  by  Kant, 
in  his  great  work,  the  Krltlk  of  Pure  Reason.  Suppose  that  the 
eves,  in  every  exercise  of  vision,  were  to  start  witli  a  lens  of  a 
particular  shape  and  colour,  every  object  seen  would  take  a  pre- 
determined form,  and  appear  in  a  special  hue.  It  is  thus,  accord- 
ino"  to  Kant,  that  the  mind  sets  out  with  certain  forms  which  it 
imposes  on  lyJienomena, — that  is,  on  appearances  presenting  them- 
selves. In  every  primary  cognition  the  mind  imposes  two  Forms, 
one  of  Space  and  another  of  Time,  on  the  phenomena  presented 
empirically  or  a  posteriori     Again,  in  comparing  its  cognitions,  it 


BOOK  I.]  NEGATIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  17 

sets  thcni  in  a  iiumLer  of  frameworks,  called  Categories,  such  as  that 
of  Quantit}-,  Qiialit)',  Relation  (including-  Substance  and  Accident, 
Causality  and  Dependence),  and  Modality,  which  have  a  reality  not 
objectively  in  things  but  subjectively  in  the  mind.  A  yet  higher 
formative  power  brings  these  categories  into  unity  in  three  Ideas  of 
Pure  Reason,  those  of  Substance,  Interdependence  of  Phenomena, 
and  God,  in  which  all  objective  reality  has  disappeared.  These 
forms  of  the  senses,  categories  of  the  understanding,  and  ideas  of 
pure  reason,  constitute  the  a  priori  as  distinguished  from  tlic  a  looste- 
riori  elements  in  the  mental  exercises. 

It  Avould  carry  us  prematurely  into  very  profound  topics,  with 
extensively  ramified  connexions,  were  I  at  tins  early  stage  to  criti- 
cise this  doctrine  in  all  its  extent  and  bearings.  It  is  enough  for 
the  present  to  affirm  .that  so  far  as  it  declares  that  the  mind  in 
cognition  gives  to  the  object  wdiat  is  not  in  the  object,  it  is  an 
unnatural  doctrine,  and  is  fraught  with  far-reaching  consequences 
of  a  perilous  character.  The  doctrine  which  I  hope  to  establish 
is,  that  the  intuitive  or  cognitive  powers  do  not  impose  forms  on 
things,  but  are  simply  the  agents  or  instruments  by  which  we  are 
enabled  to  discover  wdiat  is  in  them.  The  mind,  in  looking  at 
a  material  object,  does  not  superinduce  extension  on  it,  but  it 
observes  that  it  is  in  space  and  must  be  in  space.  It  does  not 
carry  within  it  a  chain,  wherewith  to  connect  events  by  a  law  of 
causation,  but  it  has  a  capacity  to  discover  that  events  are  so  con- 
nected and  must  be  so  connected.  The  capacity  of  cognition  in 
the  mind  is  not  that  of  the  bent  mirror,  to  reflect  the  object 
under  modified  forms,  but  of  the  plane  mirror,  to  reflect  it  as  it 
is  in  its  proper  shape  and  colour.  The  truth  is  perceived  by  the 
mind,  not  formed  ;  it  is  cognized,  not  created.  There  must  of 
course  be  a  correspondence  between  the  subject,  mind,  and  the 
object,  material  or  mental,  contemplated  ;  but  it  is  a  correspon- 
dence whereby  the  one  knows  and  the  other  is  known.  This  seems 
to  me  to  be  our  natural,  intuitive,  and  necessary  conviction,  and 
he  who  departs  from  it  is  landed  in  thickening  difficulties  on  every 
side ;  and  in  particular  he  cannot  possibly  defend  himself  from 
the  assaults  of  scepticism,  for  if  tlic  mind  in  respect  of  what  it 
apprehends  in  the  object  can   create  so  much,  why  not  suppose 


18  GENERAL  PBOPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

that  it  creates  all  ?  If  it  can  create  the  space  in  which  tlie  object 
is  perceived,  why  not  allow  that  it  can  create  the  object  itself? 
This  was  the  conclusion  drawn  by  Fichte,  who,  carrying  out  the 
principles  of  Kant  a  step  further,  made  the  wliole  supposed  exter- 
nal world  a  mere  projection  of  the  mind.  There  is  no  satisfactory 
or  consistent  way  of  avoidhig  this  consequence  but  by  adhering  to 
the  natural  doctrine,  and  holding  that  the  mind  is  so  constituted 
as  to  know  the  object  as  it  is,  under  the  aspects  in  which  it  is 
presented  to  it. 


SECT.   IV.— THE  INTUITIONS  ARE  NOT   IMMEDIATELY  BEFORE  CON- 
SCIOUSNESS AS  LAWS  OR  PRINCIPLES. 

I  am  to  labour  to  show,  in  coming  sections,  that  there  are 
intuitive  principles  in  the  mind  regulating  cognitions,  beliefs,  and 
judgments,  whether  intellectual  or  moral.  My  present  position 
is,  that  operating  in  the  mind  as  native  laws  or  rules,  they  are  not,  as 
such,  before  the  consciousness. 

Every  one  speaks  of  there  being  in  the  mind  capacities,  powers, 
or  faculties,  such  as  the  memory,  or  the  imagination,  or  the 
reason,  yet  no  one  is  immediately  conscious  of  these  mental  powers. 
We  arc  conscious  of  remembering  a  given  event,  of  imagining  a 
given  scene,  of  discovering  a  given  relation,  but  not  of  the  mental 
power  from  which  the  acts  proceed.  Such  considerations  show 
that  there  may  be  operating  in  the  mind  faculties  which  do  not 
fall  directly  under  the  internal  eye.  What  is  true  of  the  faculties 
is  true  of  the  intuitive  potencies  of  the  mind.  Indeed  the  intui- 
tive principles  of  the  mind  are  very  closely  related  to  the  faculties. 
I  have  seldom,  however,  seen  the  precise  relation  between  them 
distinctly  pointed  out.  One  class  of  investigators,  such  as  Locke, 
treat  of  the  faculties ;  another  class,  such  as  the  German  meta- 
physicians who  have  ramified  from  Kant,  of  a  priori  principles ; 
while  a  third  class,  such  as  the  Scottish  school  which  has  sprung 
from  Reid,  admit  both  into  their  system,  but  without  explaining 
their  connexion.  To  me  it  appears  that  the  intuitive  or  necessary 
principles  of  the  mind  are  just  the  fundamental  principles  or  regu- 
lative laws  of  the  faculties.    But  without  dwelling  on  this  at  pres- 


BOOK  I.J  NEGATIVE  PBOPOSITIONS.  19 

ent,  it  is  cnoiigli  to  announce  that  the  necessary  principles,  like 
the  faculties  of  the  mind,  do  not  come  immediately  under  the 
cognizance  of  consciousness.  The  individual  actings  do  indeed 
fall  directly  under  reflection  or  the  internal  sense.  Thus  we  are 
conscious  that  the  mind,  on  discovering  a  given  effect,  judges  and 
decides  that  it  must  have  a  cause,  and  looks  for  a  cause  ;  but  it 
has  not  meanwhile  before  it  the  general  principle  that  every  effect 
lias  a  cause,  or  the  principle  of  causation  expressly  formalized. 
Being  convinced  that  we  exist,  we  cannot  be  made  to  believe  that 
we  do  not  exist ;  but  this  is  not  because  we  have  consciously 
before  us  the  principle  of  contradiction,  "  that  it  is  impossible 
for  the  same  tiling  to  be  and  not  to  be  at  the  same  time."  It  will 
be  shown  forthwith  that  we  arrive  reflexly  at  a  knowledge  of  the 
intuitive  principle,  which  operates  spontaneously,  by  the  observa- 
tion and  generalization  of  its  individual  acts  or  energies.  My 
present  purpose  is  gained  if  it  is  shown  that  such  metaphysical 
principles  as  causation  and  contradiction  are  not  directly  before 
consciousness  as  rules,  laws,  or  principles. 


20  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 


CHAP  TEE   II. 
POSITIVE   PROPOSITIONS. 

SECT.  I. — THERE    ARE   INTUITIVE    PRINCIPLES   OPERATING    IN   THE    MIND. 

I  DO  not  propose  to  bring  a  full  or  satisfactory  proof  of  this 
assertion  in  this  short  section ;  the  evidence  will  be  found  in 
Part  Second,  in  which  our  intuitive  convictions  are  unfolded  and 
discussed  in  detail.  All  that  I  profess  to  do  at  this  stage  is,  to 
announce  and  explain  certain  positions  which  I  hope  to  establish 
as  we  proceed,  and  answer  some  preliminary  objections  which  are 
likely  to  occur  to  the  English  reader.  To  illustrate  my  meaning  I 
must  refer  to  certain  convictions  which  I  suppose  to  be  intuitive, 
such  as  those  regarding  Space  and  Time,  Substance,  Quality,  Cause 
and  Effect,  and  Moral  Good  ;  all  of  these  will  be  treated  in  detail 
in  subsequent  parts  of  the  volume. 

(1.)  The  first  position  I  would  lay  down  is,  that  the  mind  must 
have  something  native  or  innate.  The  word  "  innate  "  is  apt  to  be 
obnoxious  to  English  ears  ;  it  is  associated  with  views  which  Locke 
is  supposed  to  have  set  aside  for  ever ;  and  the  revival  of  it  will 
appear  to  some  like  the  raising  of  a  carcass  from  the  grave  to  which 
it  had  been  happily  consigned,  I  have  no  partiality  for  a  phrase 
which  has  been  employed  to  set  forth  doctrines  which  it  will  be 
one  object  of  this  Work  to  undermine.  To  the  phrase  "  innate 
ideas  "  I  take  strong  objections,  which  will  come  out  as  we  advance. 
To  the  term  "  innate,"  if  it  Averc  employed  to  qualify  the  proper 
noun,  I  see  no  objections  ;  but  if  any  are  offended  with  it,  the 
word  "  native "  will  serve  our  purpose  as  well.  All  that  either 
phrase  denotes  is,  that  there  is  something — at  present  I  do  not  say 
what — in  man's  soul  at  the  time  it  is  born. 


BOOK  I.]  POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  21 

In  this  respect  it  is  like  the  bodily  substances  wliicli  fall  under 
our  notice.  These  bodies  are  something  and  have  something. 
This  piece  of  iron  whicli  I  hold  in  my  hand  is  not  a  nonentity  ;  it 
is  an  existence ;  it  occupies  space ;  it  resists  pressure  ;  it  has  a 
colour.  The  soul  of  man  is  also  an  existence  ;  it  knows  ;  it  nnder- 
stands;  it  grieves  ;  it  rejoices.  The  capacity  which  it  has  of  doing 
so  may  be  described  as  native  and  original. 

In  this  respect  it  is  like  the  bodily  frame  when  it  comes  forth 
from  the  womb.  That  body  is  not  all  which  it  is  afterwards  to 
become.  Yet  it  is  not,  even  at  this  early  stage,  a  nonentity  ;  it  is 
not  a  nothing  about  to  grow  into  something.  Already  that  frame 
has  a  structure,  a  form,  and  most  wondrous  properties.  And  just 
as  little  is  the  soul,  when  it  aw^akcs  to  consciousness,  a  nonentity ; 
even  at  this  point,  it  is  an  existence,  a  something,  and  is  possessed 
of  something  which  may  be  called  innate  or  connate. 

Even  on  the  supposition  tliat  it  is  like  a  surface  of  wax  or  a 
sheet  of  white  paper,  ready  to  receive  w^hatever  is  impressed  or 
written  on  it,  the  soul  must  have  something  inborn.  If  it  has  but 
a  1  lower  of  impressibility,  it  has  in  this  something  innate.  The 
very  wax  and  paper,  in  the  inadequate  illustration  referred  to,  have 
capabilities,  the  capacity  of  taking  something  on  them,  and  retain- 
ing it.  But  such  comparisons  have  all  a  misleading  tendency. 
Surely  the  mind  has  something  more  than  a  mere  receptivity.  It 
is  not  a  mere  surface,  on  which  matter  may  reflect  itself  as  on  a 
mirror :  our  consciousness  testifies  that,  in  comparison  with  matter, 
it  is  active  ;  that  it  has  an  original,  and  an  originating  potency. 

(2.)  A  second  position  may  be  maintained ;  that  this  something 
has  rules,  laws,  or  properties.  Matter,  with  all  its  endowments, 
inorganic  and  organic,  is  regulated  by  laws  which  it  is  the  office  of 
l)hysical  and  physiological  science  to  discover.  All  the  powers  or 
l)roiierties  of  material  substance  have  rules  of  action ;  for  example, 
gravitation  and  chemical  affinity  have  appointed  modes  of  opera- 
tion which  can  be  expressed  in  quantitative  proportions.  That 
mind  also  has  properties,  is  shown  by  its  action  ;  and  surely  these 
properties  do  not  act  capriciously  or  lawlessly.  There  arc  rules 
involved  in  the  very  constitution  of  its  active  properties,  and  these 
are  not  beyond  the  possibility  of  l^eing  discovered  and   expressed. 


22  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

The  senses  indeed  cannot  detect  tliem,  but  tliey  may  be  found  out 
by  internal  observation.  It  is  true  tliat  this  law  cannot  be  dis- 
covered immediately  by  consciousness,  any  more  than  the  law  of 
gravitation  can  be  perceived  by  the  eye.  But  the  operations  of 
the  mental  properties  are  under  tlie  observation  of  consciousness 
just  as  those  of  gravitation  are  under  the  senses  ;  and  by  careful 
observation,  analysis,  and  generalization,  we  may  from  the  acts 
reach  the  laws  of  the  acts.  He  who  has  reached  the  exact  expres- 
sion of  our  mental  properties,  is  in  possession  of  a  law  which  is 
native  or  innate. 

(3.)  As  a  third  position,  it  is  capable  of  being  established  that 
tlie  mind  has  original  perceptions,  which  may  be  described  as  in- 
tuitive. Every  one  will  acknowledge  that  it  has  perceptions  tlirougli 
the  senses,  and  I  shall  endeavour  to  show,  as  we  advance,  that  it 
has  perceptions  of  the  understanding  and  of  the  moral  faculty  : 
some  of  these  perceptions  arc,  no  doubt,  secondary  and  derivative, 
but  the  secondary  imply  primary  perceptions,  and  the  derivative 
original  ones.  Thus  perception  of  the  eye  may  be  derivative  ;  but 
it  implies  an  original  perception,  by  the  eye,  of  a  surface.  It  is  by 
a  process  of  reasoning  that  I  know  that  the  square  of  the  hypote- 
nuse of  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal  to  the  square  of  the  other 
two  sides  :  but  this  reasoning  proceeds  on  certain  axiomatic  truths 
whose  certainty  is  seen  at  once,  as  that  "  if  equals  be  added  to 
equals,  the  wholes  are  equal."  Let  it  be  observed  that  we  are  now 
in  a  region  in  which  are  loftier  powers  than  those  possessed  by 
inert  matter ;  still  tliese  higher  have  rules  as  well  as  the  lower  or 
material  properties.  The  original  perceptions  by  sense,  or  reason, 
or  moral  power,  all  have  their  laws,  which  it  should  be  tlie  busi- 
ness of  psychology  or  of  metaphysics  to  discover  and  determine. 
These  perceptions  may  be  represented  as  intuitions,  inasmuch  as 
they  look  iramediAtely  on  the  object  or  truth.  The  rules  or  laws 
which  they  obey  may  be  described  as  intuitive  ;  and  it  is  the  office 
of  mental  science  to  discover  them  by  a  process  of  introspection, 
abstraction,  and  comparison. 

(4.)  It  is  possible  to  defend  a  fourth  position,  that  the  mind  can 
discover  necessary  and  universal  truth.  Not  that  I  propose  to 
substantiate  this   statement  at  tliis   stage  of  our  inquiries,  still  I 


BOOK  I.]  POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  23 

may  announce  it,  and  show  Lott  it  is  not  impossible  to  establish 
it.  The  mind  declares  that  these  two  straight  lines  before  it  do 
not  enclose  a  space.  It  does  more  :  it  declares  of  every  other  two 
straight  lines  conceived,  that  they  cannot  enclose  a  space.  It  says 
of  these  two  straight  lines,  that  if  they  proceed  an  inch  without 
being  nearer  each  other,  that  they  will  proceed  an  ell,  a  mile,  or  a 
myriad  of  miles,  without  being  nearer  j  nay,  it  declares  of  all  such 
parallel  lines,  that  they  may  be  prolonged  for  ever  without  meet- 
ing. These  are  specimens  of  a  large  class  of  truths,  which  the 
mind  perceives  to  be  true,  and  necessarily  true.  There  are  logical 
trutlis — such  as  that  whatever  is  predicated  of  a  class  may  be  pre- 
dicated of  all  the  members  of  the  class ;  and  moral  truths — such  as 
that  sin  is  deserving  of  reprobation,  which  are  also  necessary  and 
universal.  But  if  the  mind  may — as  I  maintain  that  it  can  and 
docs — rise  to  the  discovery  of  such  truths,  it  must  be  by  native 
laws,  the  expression  of  which  will  give  us  metaphysical  science, 
just  as  the  expression  of  the  laws  which  material  phenomena  obey 
gives  us  physical  science. 

But  it  will  be  said  that  we  discover  all  this  by  experience.  We 
arc  not  at  this  stage  of  inquiry  in  circumstances  to  have  the  relation 
between  intuition  and  experience  definitively  pointed  out.     But 

(5.)  It  may  be  stated,  as  a  fifth  position,  that  the  very  acquisition 
of  experience  implies  native  laws  or  principles.  So  far  from  experi- 
ence being  able  to  account  for  innate  principles,  innate  principles 
are  required  to  account  for  the  treasures  of  experience.  For  how 
is  it  that  man  is  enabled  to  gather  experience  ?  How  is  he  different 
in  this  respect  from  the  stock  or  the  stone,  from  the  vegetable  or 
the  brute,  wliich  can  acquire  no  experience,  at  least  no  such  expe- 
rience ?  Plainly  because  he  is  endowed  with  capacities  for  this 
end  ;  and  these  faculties  must  have  some  law  or  principle  on  which 
they  proceed.  From  the  known  man  can  discover  the  unknown, 
from  tlio  past  he  can  anticipate  tlie  future  ;  and  when  he  does  so, 
he  must  proceed  on  some  principle  which  is  capable  of  exposition, 
and  which  ought  to  be  expressed.  And  if  man  be  capable,  as  I 
maintain  he  is,  of  reaching  necessary  and  universal  truth,  he  must 
proceed  on  principles  which  cannot  be  derived  from  experience. 
Tvrcnty  times  have  we  tried,  and  found  that  two  straight  lines  do 


24  GENERAL  PBOPOSITIONS.  [parti. 

not  enclose  a  space :  tliis  does  not  authorize  us  to  affirm  tliat  they 
never  can  enclose  a  space,  otherwise  "we  might  argue  that,  because 
we  had  seen  a  judge  and  his  wig  twenty  times  together,  they  must 
therefore  be  together  through  all  eternity.  A  hundred  times  have 
I  seen  a  spark  kindle  gunpowder :  this  does  not  entitle  me  to 
declare  that  it  will  do  so  the  thousandth  or  the  millionth  time,  or 
wherever  the  spark  and  the  gunpowder  are  found.  The  gathered 
knowledge  and  wisdom  of  man,  and  his  power  of  prediction,  thus 
imply  more  tlian  experience,  they  presuppose  faculties  to  enable 
him  to  gather  experience,  and  in  some  cases  involve  necessary 
principles  which  enable  him,  and  justify  him,  as  he  acts  on  his 
ability,  to  rise  from  a  limited  experience  to  an  unlimited  and 
necessary  law. 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  we  reach  these  results  by  reasoning. 
I  reply  that 

(6.)  A  sixth  position  may  be  established,  that  reasoning  proceeds 
on  principles  which  cannot  be  proved  by  reasoning,  but  must  be 
assumed,  and  assumed  as  seen  intuitively  to  be  true.  In  all  ratio- 
cination there  must  be  something  from  which  we  argue.  That 
from  wiiich  we  argue  is  the  premiss  ;  in  the  Aristotelian  analysis 
of  argument  it  is  the  two  premises.  But  as  we  go  back  and  back 
we  must  at  length  come  to  something  which  cannot  be  proven. 
That  which  cannot  be  proven  must  be  assumed,  but  surely  not 
assumed  capriciously  ;  if  assumed  capriciously  it  can  yield  no  proper 
foundation,  and  if  not  assumed  arbitrarily  it  must  be  accord- 
ing to  some  rule  or  principle  which  should  be  expounded  and 
stated  by  the  metaphysician.  How  can  we  reason  but  from  what 
we  know?  and  in  going  back  we  come  to  truths  which  wo  know 
directly,  that  is,  by  intution,  and  the  law  of  this  intuition  should 
be  evolved.  It  might  further  be  shown  that  there  must  be  a 
mental  principle  involved, — it  is  tlie  dictum  in  the  Aristotelian 
account  of  reasoning, — in  the  process  by  which  we  connect  the 
conclusion  with  the  premises ;  for  were  there  no  such  principle 
the  ratiocination  would  be  arbitrary,  and  it  would  be  vain  for  any 
man  to  endeavour  to  convince  his  neighbour,  or  even  to  try  to  keep 
his  own  thinking  consistent.  Such  considerations  as  these  show 
that  at  the  foundation   of  argument,  and  at  every  stage   of  the 


BOOK  I.]  POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  25 

superstructure,    there    are    mental    principles    involved   which   are 
\  either  intuitive  or  depend  on  principles  which  are  intuitive. 

SECT.  II.— THE  NATIVE  COxNVICTIONS  OF  THE  MIND  ARE  OF  THE  NATURE 
OF  PERCEPTIONS   OR  INTUITIONS. 

In  some  cases  there  are  external  ol)ject3  presented  ;  the  mind 
loolts  upon  tliem,  and  the  conviction  at  once  springs  up.  Thus  it 
is  that  it  knows  immediately  this  particular  body,  this  paper  or 
table,  as  occupying  space.  In  other  cases  it  is  something  within 
the  mind  that  is  contemplated  ;  it  is  self  in  some  particular  exer- 
cise,—say  thinking  or  feeling.  In  many  instances  the  object  pre- 
sented in  the  mind  has  come  there  as  the  result  of  a  prior  mental 
process.  Thus,  having  at  a  former  time  seen  two  straight  lines,  wo 
now,  in  our  thinking  moods,  image  or  represent  them  ;  and  the 
mind,  on  the  contemplation,  proclaims  at  once  that  they  cannot 
enclose  a  space.  Or  we  have  occasion  to  consider  a  particular 
voluntary  sentiment  of  a  fellow-man,— say  his  cherishing  malice 
against  another  man,  and  we  proclaim  it  to  be  evil,  condemnable. 
In  this  last  instance  the  act  contemplated  is  not,  properly  speaking, 
under  our  immediate  view,  for  it  is  in  the  breast  of  a  neighbour, 
but  it  is  represented  to  us  in  our  minds,  and  looking  on  this  repre- 
sentation the  mind  pronounces  a  decision.  In  every  case  these 
convictions  seem  to  be  of  the  nature  of  perceptions,  that  is,  some- 
thing is  presented  to  us,  and  the  cognition,  belief,  or  judgment  is 
formed.  It  is  on  this  account  tliat  I  have,  in  the  title  of  this 
treatise,  chosen  to  call  them  intuitions.  As  we  advance  we  shall 
iind  otlier  distinctive  characters,  the  expression  of  which  yields 
other  epithets;  but  the  term  "intuitions,"  tliat  is,  perceptions 
formed  by  looking  in  upon  objects,  seems  to  bring  out  the  original 
quality  of  the  native  convictions  of  the  mind. 


SECT.  III.-INTUITIVE  CONVICTIONS  RISE  ON   THE  CONTEMPLATION   OP 
OBJECTS  PRESENTED   OR  REPRESENTED   TO   THE  MIND. 

Metaphysicians  have  often  given  such  an  account  of  them  as  to 
leave  the  impression  that  the  mind  creates  them  independent  of 


26  GENERAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

things,  or  that,  at  the  utmost,  experience  furnishes  merely  the 
occasion,  on  the  occurrence  of  which  the  mind  fashions  them  by- 
its  own  inherent  power.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  show  that  the 
relation  between  the  intuitive  powers  and  corresponding  olyects  is 
of  a  much  closer  and  more  dependent  character  than  this  account 
would  lead  us  to  suppose.  In  intuition  we  look  into  tlie  object, 
we  discover  something  in  it,  or  belonging  to  it,  or  we  discover  a 
relation  between  it  and  some  other  object.  Were  the  object  taken 
away  the  perception  would  be  meaningless,  indeed  it  would  alto- 
gether cease.  Intuition  is  a  perception  of  an  object,  and  of  some- 
thing in  it  or  pertaining  to  it.  Perception,  without  something 
looked  into,  would  be  as  contradictory  as  vision  without  an  object 
seen,  or  touch  without  an  object  felt.  In  our  cognitions  we  know 
objects,  or  qualities  of  objects,  we  know  self  as  thinking,  or  body 
as  extended.  In  belief  we  entertain  a  trust  regarding  certain 
objects  that  tliey  are  so  and  so  ;  of  time,  for  example,  that  it  cai\ 
come  to  no  end.  In  judgment  we  discover  certain  relations  between 
two  or  more  objects,  as  that  a  mode  implies  a  substance.  Our 
intuitive  convictions  are  thus  not  ideas,  notions,  judgments,  formed 
apart  from  objects,  but  are  in  fact  discoveries  of  something  in 
objects,  or  relating  to  them.^ 

SECT.   IV.— THE   INTUITIONS   OF   THE   MIND   ARE   PRIMARILY   DIRECTED   TO 
INDIVIDUAL  OBJECTS. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  show,  when  I  come  to  distinguish  and 
classify  the  intuitions,  that  some  are  of  tlie  nature  of  cognitions 
and  beliefs,  while  others  are  of  the  nature  of  judgments.  But 
whatever  be  their  distinctive  nature,  as  intuitions,  they  primarily 
contemplate  objects  as  individuals.  If  I  know,  or  believe  in  any 
thing,  it  is  as  an  existing  thing,  that  is,  as  singular.  If  I  form  an 
intuitive  judgment,  that  is,  make  a  comparison,  it  is  still  in  regard 
to  two  or  more  objects  considered  as  singulars ;  and  so  far  as  we 
pass  beyond  this,  there  is  always,  as  I  shall  endeavour  to  show,  a 
discursive  process  involved. 

'  Locke  laid  strong  hold  of  the  features  specified  in  this  section  and  the  last;  see  infra, 
Part  I.  IJook  ii.  Chap.  iii. 


BOOK  I.]  POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  27 

A  very  different  account  is  often  given,  if  not  formally,  at  least 
implicitly,  of  intuition  or  of  intuitive  reason.     Man  is  represented 
as  g-azing  immediately  on  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good,  mean- 
ing in  the  abstract,  or  in  the  general.     It  is  admitted  that  there 
must  be  some  sort  of  experience,  some  individual  object  presented 
as  the  occasion  ;   but  the  mind,  being  thus  roused  into  activity,  is 
represented  as  contemplating,  by  direct  vision,  such  things  as  space 
and  time,  substance  and  quality,  cause  and   effect,  the  infinite  and 
moral  good.     I  hope  to  be   able  to  show  that  this  theory  is   alto- 
gether mistaken.     Our  appeal  on  this   subject  must  be  to  the  con- 
sciousness and  the  memory,  and  these  give  a  very  different  account 
of  the  process  which  passes  through  the  mind  when  it  is  employed 
about  such  objects.     Intuitively  the  mind  contemplates  a  particular 
body  as  occupying  space  and  being  in  space,  and  it  is  by  a  sub- 
sequent intellectual  process,  in  which  abstraction  acts  an  important 
part,  that  the  idea  of  space  is  formed.     Intuitively  the  mind  con 
templates   an  event   as   happening  in  time,  and  then  by  a  further 
process  arrives  at  the  notion  of  time.     The  mind  has  not  intuitively 
an   idea  of  cause  or   causation  in  the   abstract,  but  discovering   a 
given  effect,  it  looks  for  a  specific  cause.     It  does  not  form  some 
sort  of  a  vague  notion  of  a  general  infinite,  but  fixing  its  attention 
on  some  individual  thing, — such   as   space,  or  time,  or  God, — it  is 
constrained  to  believe  it  to  be  infinite.     The  child  has  not  formed 
to  itself  a  refined  idea  of  moral  good,  but  contemplating  a  given 
action,  it  proclaims  it  to  be  good  or  evil.     The  same  remark  holds 
good  of  the  intuitive  judgments  of  the  mind,  that  is,  when  it  com- 
pares two  or  more  things,  and  proclaims  them  at  once  to  agree  or 
disagree.     I  do  not,  without  a  process  of  discursive  thought,  pro- 
nounce, or  even  understand,  the  general  maxim  that  things  which 
are  equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another,  but  on  dis- 
covering that  first  one  bush  and  then  another  bush  are  of  the  same 
height  as  my  staff,  I  decide  that  the  two  bushes  are  equal  to  one 
another. 

It  will  be  shown  in  next  section  that  the  mind  has  the  power  of 
generalizing  tlic  individual  cognitions  or  judgments  of  intuition, 
and  in  doing  so  it  may  arrive  at  most  important  truth.  It  will 
come  out,  too,  that  intuition  may  fasten  on  the  general   proposition 


28  GENERAL  PBOFOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

and  pronounce  decisions  in  wliicli  it  is  invoh^cd.  But  in  tlic  for- 
mation of  the  general  maxim,  there  is  a  process  of  logical  thought 
involved  for  which  the  intuition  is  not  responsible.  It  is  only  in 
the  form  of  convictions  regarding  individuals  presenting  them- 
selves that  our  intuitions  manifest  themselves  in  all  men, — in 
children  and  savages  for  instance.  The  boy  decides  that  the  ball 
which  he  holds  in  his  hand  cannot  be  at  the  same  time  in  the 
hand  of  some  other  boy  who  may  pretend  to  liave  it ;  but  he  has 
not,  meanwhile,  consciously  before  him  the  formula  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  the  same  body  to  be  in  two  places  at  the  same  time. 
Tlie  individual  conviction  is  in  all  men  when  the  objects  are 
pressed  on  their  attention  ;  the  general  maxim  is  the  result  of 
thought,  and  especially  of  abstraction  and  generalization.  By 
drawing  this  distinction  we  are  able  to  maintain  that  intuitions 
are  native  and  in  all  minds,  and  yet  save  ourselves  from  the 
absurdity  in  which  so  many  metaphysicians  land  themselves  when 
tliey  speak  of  children  or  infants  as  employed  in  contemplating  the 
ego  and  the  non-ego,  personality,  externality,  subject  and  object. 
The  particular  conviction  is  formed  by  all  in  a  concrete  form 
when  the  appropriate  objects  present  themselves ;  but  tiie  abstract 
formula  is  fashioned  by  those  addicted  to  reflection,  and  is  not 
even  nnderstood  except  by  those  whose  minds  are  matured  and 
cultivated. 


SECT,  v.— THE  INDIVIDUAL  INTUITIVE  CONVICTIONS  CAN  BE  GENERALIZED 
INTO  MAXIMS,  AND  THESE  ARE  ENTITLED  TO  BE  REPRESENTED  AS  PUI- 
LOSOPHIC  PRINCIPLES. 

The  native  principles  in  the  soul  are  analogous  to  the  physical 
laws  operating  in  external  nature.  Both  act  at  all  times,  on  the 
necessary  conditions  being  supplied.  Like  tlie  physiological  pro- 
cesses of  respiration  and  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  the  intuitions 
do  not  depend  for  their  operation  on  any  voluntary  determination 
of  the  human  mind,  and  they  act  v/liether  we  observe  them  or  no  ; 
indeed  they  often  act  best  wlien  we  are  taking  no  notice  of  tliem. 
We  cannot  command  their  exercise  on  the  one  hand,  nor  prohibit 
it  on  the  other.     A  greater  or  less  number  of  them  are  working  in 


BOOK  I.]  POSITIVE  PROPOSITIONS.  29 

the  soul  at  every  waking  moment  of  our  existence.  It  is  always 
to  be  remembered,  indeed,  that  they  are  mental  and  not  material 
laws ;  but  making  allowance  for  this,  they  may  be  regarded  as 
operating  very  much  like  the  great  physical  or  physiological  laws 
of  chemical  affinity,  or  of  nervous  irritability,  or  of  the  reflex 
nervous  system.  As  they  act  in  an  analogous  manner,  so  they 
may  be  discovered  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  laws  of  the 
material  universe,  that  is,  by  the  method  of  induction. 

The  laws  of  matter  are  discovered  by  the  observation  and  gener- 
alization of  their  individual  operations.  With  the  exception  of  a 
few  metaphysicians  of  the  schools  of  Schelling  or  Hegel,  no  one 
now  maintains  that  these  laws  can  be  discovered  by  a  priori  specu- 
lation. Nor  can  they  be  detected  by  mere  sense, — by  eye,  or  touch, 
or  ear  ;  no  man  ever  yet  saw,  or  handled,  or  heard,  a  law  of  nature. 
All  that  falls  under  the  perception  of  the  senses  are  individual 
facts,  and  those  generally  concrete  or  complex ;  that  is,  the  object 
is  presented  as  exhibiting  more  than  one  quality  at  the  same  time, 
or  the  effect  is  tlie  result  of  a  variety  of  causes.  In  order  to  reach 
the  law  by  an  observation  of  the  facts,  there  is  need  first  of  all  of 
a  judicious  analysis,  or,  as  Bacon  calls  it,  the  necessary  "  rejections 
and  exclusions,"  or  the  separation  and  setting  aside  of  the  extra- 
neous matter  of  the  mixed  phenomenon  ;  that  is,  the  matter  which 
does  not  belong  to  the  law  or  agent  we  are  seeking  to  discover. 
Having  made  these  appropriate  rejections,  we  now  generalize  the 
facts — that  is,  find  out  where  they  agree — and  thus  arrive  at  the 
discovery  of  the  physical  law. 

It  is  much  in  the  same  way,  muiatis  rauiandis,  that  we  discover 
the  laws  of  our  original  and  native  convictions.  I  boldly  affirm 
that  it  is  as  impossible  to  determine  them  as  it  is  to  settle  the  laws 
of  the  external  universe  by  a  priori  cogitation  or  logical  division 
and  dissection.  As  they  cannot  be  elaborated  by  speculation  on 
the  one  hand,  so  neither  do  they  fall  under  the  immediate  cogni- 
zance of  consciousness  on  tlie  otlier.  All  tliat  comes  under  the 
consciousness  is  individual :  it  is  an  object  now  present ;  it  is 
the  mind  in  some  state  or  mode.  But  our  modifications  of  mind 
at  any  given  moment  are  always  more  or  less  complex ;  that 
is,  there  is  more  than  one   property  in   exercise,  though  of   course 


30  GENEBAL  PROPOSITIONS.  [part  i. 

combined  in  tlie  unity  of  the  mind.  But  by  a  sharp  analysis  it  is 
always  possible  to  separate  the  different  elements,  and  fix  the 
attention  exclusively  on  that  which  alone  pertains  to  the  law  or 
Iiropcrty  we  are  seeking  to  evolve.  Examining  carefully  the  nature 
of  the  acts  which  seem  to  flow  from  the  same  principle,  we  gener- 
alize them  ;  and  if  we  do  so  accurately,  we  obtain  the  exact  nature 
of  the  principle,  and  can  embody  it  in  a  verbal  expression. 

The  principle  thus  discovered  and  enunciated  is  properly  a 
metaphysical  one  ;  it  is  a  truth  above  sense,  a  truth  of  mind,  a 
truth  of  reason.  It  is  different  in  its  origin  and  authority  from  the 
general  rules  reached  by  experience,  such  as  the  law  of  gravitation, 
or  the  law  of  chemical  affinity,  or  the  law  of  the  distribution  of 
animals  over  the  earth's  sm'facc.  These  latter  are  the  mere  gener- 
alizations of  an  experience  necessarily  limited, — they  hold  good 
merely  in  the  measure  of  our  experience ;  and  as  experience  can 
never  reach  all  possible  cases,  so  the  rule  can  never  be  absolute, — 
■we  can  never  say  that  there  may  not  be  exceptions.  Laws  of  the 
former  kind  are  of  a  higher  and  deeper  nature,  they  are  the  gener- 
alization of  convictions  carrying  necessity  with  them,  and  a  con- 
sequent universality  in  their  very  nature.  They  are  entitled  to  be 
regarded  as  in  an  especial  sense  philosopliic  principles,  being  the 
ground  to  which  we  come  when  we  follow  any  system  of  truth 
sufiBciently  far  down,  and  competent  to  act  as  a  basis  on  which  to 
erect  a  superstructure  of  science.  They  are  truths  of  our  original 
nature,  having  the  sanction  of  Him  who  hath  given  us  our  constitu- 
tion, and  graven  them  there  with  His  own  finger. 

It  is  ever  to  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  detection  and 
exact  expression  of  these  intuitive  principles  is  always  a  delicate, 
and  is  often  a  most  difficult,  operation.  Did  they  fall  immediately 
under  the  eye  of  consciousness,  the  work  would  be  a  comparatively 
easy  one ;  we  should  only  have  to  look  within  in  order  to  see  them. 
But  all  that  consciousness  can  notice  are  their  individual  exercises 
mixed  up  one  with  another,  and  with  all  other  actings  of  the  mind. 
It  requires  a  microscopic  eye,  and  much  analytic  skill,  to  detect 
the  various  fibres  in  the  complex  structure,  and  to  follow  each 
through  its  various  windings  and  entanglements  to  its  source. 


BOOK  II. 

CHARACTEES    OF    OUR    INTUITIONS    AND 
METHOD  OF  EMPLOYING  THEM. 

CHAPTER   I. 
MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES   OF  INTUITION. 

SECT.  I.— TESTS. 

But  how  are  we  to  distinguish  a  primitive  conviction  which 
does  not  need  probation,  and  which  we  may  not  even  doubt,  from 
propositions  which  we  are  not  required  to  believe  till  evidence  is 
l^roduced  ?  Arc  wc  entitled  to  appeal,  when  we  please  and  as  we 
please,  to  supposed  first  truths?  Have  we  the  privilege,  when  we 
wish  to  adliere  to  a  favourite  opinion,  to  declare  that  we  see  it  to 
be  true  intuitively,  and  thus  at  once  get  rid  of  all  objections,  and 
of  the  necessity  for  even  instituting  an  examination?  May  we, 
when  hard  pressed,  or  defeated  in  argument,  resort,  as  it  suits  us, 
to  an  original  principle  which  we  assume  without  evidence,  and 
declare  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  refutation?  It  is  one  of  the 
aims  of  this  treatise  to  limit  the  confidence  we  put  in  our  supposed 
intuitions,  and  lay  a  stringent  restraint  on  the  appeal  to  truths 
which  are  represented  as  above  probation.  There  can  be  tests 
propounded  sufficient  to  determine  with  precision  what  convictions 
are,  and  what  convictions  are  not,  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  in- 
tuitive, and  these  tests  are  such  that  they  admit  of  an  easy  ajipli- 
cation,  requiring  only  a  moderate  degree  of  careful  consideration  of 
the  maxim  claiming  our  assent. 

1.  The  primarij  mark  of  mtmtive  truth  is  self -evidence.     It  must 


32  CHARACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [paet  i. 

be  evident,  and  it  must  have  its  evidence  in  tlie  object.  The  mind, 
on  the  bare  contemphition  of  the  object,  must  see  it  to  be  so  and 
so,  must  see  it  to  be  so  at  once,  without  requiring-  any  foreign 
evidence  or  mediate  proof.  Tliat  the  planet  Mars  is  inliabited. 
or  tliat  it  is  not  inhabited,  is  not  a  first  truth,  for  it  is  not  evident 
on  tlie  bare  contemplation  of  the  object.  That  the  isle  of  Mada- 
gascar is  inhabited,  even  this  is  not  a  primary  conviction ;  we 
believe  it  because  of  secondary  testimony.  Nay,  that  tlie  three 
angles  of  a  triangle  are  together  equal  to  two  right  angles,  is  not  a 
primitive  judgment,  for  it  needs  other  truths  coming  between  to 
carry  our  conviction.  But  that  tlicrc  is  an  extended  object  before 
me  wlien  I  look  at  a  table  or  a  wall,  that  I  wlio  look  at  these 
objects  exist,  and  tliat  two  marbles  added  to  two  marbles  here  will 
be  equal  to  two  marbles  added  to  two  marbles  there, — these  are 
trntlis  that  are  evident  on  the  bare  contemplation  of  the  objects, 
and  need  no  foreign  facts,  or  considerations  derived  from  any 
other  quarter,  to  establish  them. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  can  we  certainly  know  what  truths  are 
self-evident?  Are  we  not  liable  to  be  deceived,  especially  by 
education  and  prepossessions  ?  Have  not  some  declared  proposi- 
tions to  be  self-evident,  which  have  afterwards  been  positively 
disproved  ?  Tlie  reply  is,  that  if  we  devote  our  minds  earnestly  to 
the  object,  we  cannot  readily  go  astray.  ISTo  doubt,  it  is  possible 
to  fall  into  error  in  the  application  of  this  test,  as  in  the  applica- 
tion of  any  other ;  but  this  can  take  place  only  by  negligence,  by 
refusing  to  go  round  the  object  to  which  the  conviction  refers,  and 
to  look  upon  it  as  it  is  in  itself,  and  in  all  its  aspects.  In  specify- 
ing this  test  as  the  fundamental  one,  I  do  not  mean  that  it  can  be 
applied  without  much  and  careful  inspection.  It  is  fortunate  that 
we  have  a  secondary  test  to  determine  the  presence  of  the  primary 
cliaracteristic. 

2.  N'ecessity  is  a  secondary  marlc  of  intuitive  truth.  I  am  not 
inclined  to  fix  on  this. as  the  original  or  essential  characteristic. 
I  shrink  from  maintaining  that  a  proposition  is  true  because 
wo  must  believe  it.  A  proposition  is  true  as  being  true,  and 
certain  propositions  are  seen  by  us  to  be  self-evidcntly  true.  I 
would  not .  ground  the  evidence  on  the  necessity  of  belief,  but  I 


BOOK  II.]        MABKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  33 

would  ascribe  the  irresistible  nature  of  tlie  conviction  to  the  self- 
evidence.  As  the  necessity  flows  from  the  self-evidence,  so  it  may 
bec/Dme  a  test  of  it,  and  a  test  not  difficult  of  application. 

When  an  object  of  truth  is  self-evident,  necessity  always  attaches 
to  our  convictions  regardino-  it.  And  according  to  tlie  nature  of 
the  conviction,  so  is  the  necessity  attached.  "We  shall  see  that 
some  of  our  original  convictions  are  of  the  nature  of  knowledge, 
others  of  tlie  nature  of  belief,  a  third  class  of  the  nature  of  judg- 
ments, in  which  we  compare  objects  known  or  imagined  or  believed 
in.  In  the  first  our  cognition  is  necessary,  in  the  second  our  belief 
is  necessary,  in  the  third  our  judgment  is  necessary.  I  know  self 
as  an  existing  thing :  tliis  is  a  necessary  cognition  ;  I  must  enter- 
tain it,  and  never  can  be  driven  from  it.  That  space  exceeds  my 
widest  imagination  of  space:  this  is  a  necessary  belief;  I  must 
believe  it.  That  every  effect  has  a  cause:  this  is  a  necessary  judg- 
ment ;  I  must  decide  in  this  way.  Wherever  there  is  such  a  con- 
viction, it  is  a  sign  of  an  intuitive  perception.  Necessity  too  may 
be  employed  in  a  negative  form,  and  this  is  often  the  most  decisive 
form.  If  I  know  immediately  that  there  is  an  extended  object 
before  me  in  the  book  which  I  read,  I  cannot  be  made  to  know 
that  there  is  not  an  extended  object  before  me.  If  I  must  believe 
that  time  has  had  no  beginning,  I  cannot  be  made  to  believe  that 
it  has  had  a  beginning.  Necessitated  as  I  am  to  decide  tliat  two 
parallel  lines  cannot  meet,  I  cannot  be  made  to  decide  that  they 
can  meet.  Necessity  as  a  test  may  thus  assume  two  forms,  and 
we  may  take  the  one  best  suited  to  our  purpose  at  the  time.  In 
the  use  of  a  very  little  care  and  discernment,  this  test  will  settle 
for  us  as  to  any  given  truth,  whether  it  is  or  is  not  self-evident. 

3.  Catholicity  may  le  employed  as  a  tertiary  test.  By  catholicity 
is  meant  that  the  conviction  is  entertained  by  all  men,  or  at  least 
by  all  men  possessed  of  intelligence,  when  the  objects  are  pre- 
sented. I  am  not  inclined  to  use  this  as  a  primary  test.  For  in 
the  first  place  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain,  or  at  least  to  settle 
absolutely,  what  truths  may  claim  this  connnon  consent  of 
humanity  ;  and  even  though  this  were  determined,  still  it  might 
be  urged  in  the  second  place  that  this  does  not  prove  that  it  is 
necessary  or  original,  but  simply  that  it  is  a  native  property, — like 


U  CHARACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

the  appetite  for  food  among  all  men,— and  would  still  leave  it 
possible  for  opponents  to  maintain  that  there  may  be  intelligent 
beings  in  other  worlds  wlio  accord  no  such  assent,  just  as  we  can 
conceive  beings  in  the  other  parts  of  the  universe  who  liave  no 
craving  for  meat  or  drink.  But  wliile  not  inclined  to  use  catho- 
licity as  a  primary  test,  I  think  it  may  come  in  at  times  as  an 
auxiliary  one.  For  wliat  is  in  all  men,  may  most  probably  come 
from  what  is  not  only  native,  but  necessary  ;  and  must  also  in  all 
probability  be  self-evident,  or  at  least  follow  very  directly  from  what 
is  self-evident.  Catholicity,  when  conjoined  with  necessity,  may  deter- 
mine very  readily  and  precisely  whether  a  conviction  is  intuitive. 

Important  purposes  are  served  by  the  combination  of  these  two 
tests,  that  is,  necessity  and  catholicity.  By  the  first  we  have  a 
personal  assurance  which  can  never  be  shaken,  and  of  wliich  no 
one  can  deprive  us.  Though  the  whole  world  were  to  declare  that 
we  do  not  exist,  or  tliat  a  cruel  action  is  good,  we  would  not  give 
up  our  own  personal  conviction  in  favour  of  their  declaration.  By 
the  other  principle  we  have  confidence  in  addressing  our  fellow- 
men,  for  we  know  that  there  are  grounds  of  thought  common  to 
them  and  to  us,  and  to  those  we  can  appeal  in  reasoning  with 
them.  By  the  one  I  am  enabled,  yea,  compelled,  to  hold  by  my 
personality,  and  maintain  my  independence  ;  by  the  other  I  am 
made  to  feel  that  I  am  one  of  a  large  family,  every  member  of 
wliich  has  the  same  principles  of  thought  and  belief  as  I  myself 
have.  The  one  gives  me  the  argument  from  private  judgment, 
the  other  the  argument  from  common  or  catholic  consent.  The 
concurrence  of  the  two  should  suffice  to  protect  me  from  scepticism 
of  every  kind,  whether  it  relate  to  the  world  within  or  the  world 
without,  whether  to  physical  or  moral  truths. 

These  marks  are  as  clear  and  as  easily  applied,  and  are  quite  as 
decisive  for  testing  reason  in  its  primary  or  intuitive  exercise,  as 
the  syllogism  is  in  testing  reason  in  its  secondary  or  derivative 
operation — that  is,  as  inference  or  reasoning. 

SECT.  II.— DIFFERENT   ASPECTS  OF   IXTUITIOXS   AND   THEIR    THEORETICAL 

CHARACTERS. 

nithcrto  we  have  been  approaching  our  suliject  by  a  somewhat 


BOOK  II.]        MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  35 

winding  path,  catching  glimpses  of  the  position  of  the  building, 
and  some  of  its  principal  turrets.  We  may  now  walk  up  directly 
to  it,  and  take  a  survey  of  its  general  form,  and  ascertain  the  mode 
of  entering  it,  with  the  view  of  afterwards  exploring  its  apartments 
one  by  one.  It  will  be  found  to  present  three  sides,  sides  of  one 
fabric,  but  each  with  its  peculiarities. 

The  intuitions  may  l^e  considered  first  as  laws,  rules,  principles, 
regulating  the  original  action  and  the  primitive  perceptions  of  the 
mind.  Or  secondly,  they  may  be  regarded  as  individual  perceptions, 
or  convictions  manifesting  themselves  in  consciousness.  Or  thirdly, 
they  may  be  contemplated  as  abstract  notions,  or  general  rules 
elaborated  out  of  the  individual  exercises.  "We  cannot  have  a 
distinct  or  adequate  view  of  our  intuitions  unless  we  carefully  distin- 
guish these  the  one  from  the  other.  The  whole  of  the  confusion, 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  errors,  wliich  have  appeared  in  the 
discussions  about  innate  ideas  and  a  priori  principles,  have  sprung 
from  neglecting  these  distinctions,  or  from  not  carrying  them  out 
consistently.  In  each  of  these  sides  the  intuitions  present  distinct 
characters,  and  many  affirmations  may  be  properly  made  of  the 
original  principles  of  the  mind  under  one  of  these  aspects^  whir.li 
would  by  no  means  hold  good  of  the  otliers. 

I.  They  may  be  contemplated  as  Laws,  Eules,  or  Peinciples 
GUIDING  THE  MiND.  Hcncc  the  soul  has  been  represented  as  To-noq 
el6u)v  and  the  "  repository  of  principles,"  and  they  themselves  called 
"  natural  laws,"  "  fundamental  laws  of  thought,"  "  forms,"  and  "  regu- 
lative principles."  '     Under  this  aspect 

1,  They  are  native.  Hence  they  have  been  designated  natural, 
innato,  connate,  connatural,  implanted,  constitutional.  All  tliesc 
phrases  point  to  the  circumstance  that  they  are  not  acquired  by 
practice,  nor  the  result  of  experience,  but  are  in  the  mind  natur- 
ally, as  constituents  of  its  very  being,  and  involved  in  its  higher 
exercises.     In  this  respect  they  are  analogous  to  miiversal  gravi- 

»  Plato  had  spoken  of  the  soul  as  vojjtoc  r6-or  [Rep.  vii.  517).  Aristotle  (De  Anlm.  iii.  4) 
'adopts  the  view,  but  modifies  it,  saying  that  it  is  right,  provided  it  be  limited  to  the  noetic 
power,  and  the  forms  be  represented  as  not  iu  readiness  for  aetion,  but  in  capacity 
(a  profound  Aristotelian  distinction).  Kal  ev  6y  oi  Myovrec  t^v  i'l^X^'^i  elvai  tottov  e'kICiv, 
■k\tiv  oTi  ovT£  o7.7i  lOO!  '/'/  voTjTLnri,  ovTE  IvTeXexsia  d/l/l(2  Svvufiei,  tu  sldrj.  Charnock,  the 
Puritan,  speaks  of  the  "  niind,  the  repository  of  principles"  (Knowledge  of  God,  Part  vi). 


36  CHARACTEBS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

tation  and  chemical  affinity,  -wliicli  are  not  produced  in  bodies  as 
they  operate,  but  are  in  the  very  nature  of  bodies,  and  the  pprings 
of  their  action.  It  is  thus — that  is,  by  an  original  property  of  his 
being — that  man  is  led  to  look  on  body  as  occupying  space,  on 
any  given  effect  as  having  a  cause,  and  on  certain  actions  as  being 
morally  good  or  evil. 

2.  lliey  are  tendencies.  In  this  respect  they  are  like  all  natural 
powers,  which  are  not  acts,  but  tendencies  to  act.  The  intuitions 
operate  on  the  appropriate  objects  being  presented  to  call  them 
forth  ;  they  fail  only  when  there  has  been  nothing  suitable  to 
evoke  them.  Hence  they  give  a  bent,  a  direction*  a  predisposi- 
tion to  the  mind.  Hence  they  have  been  called  anticipations 
(TTpoXijipeic;),  aptitudes,  and  habitudes. 

3.  T/ie>/  are  regulative.^  Tliey  rule  the  mind  in  its  original  and 
primitive  energies,  both  of  thought  and  belief.  They  lead  the 
mind,  for  example  on  discovering  a  quality,  to  connect  it  with 
substance  ;  on  contemplating  time,  to  declare  that  it  cannot  have 
had  a  beginning  ;  and  on  having  a  vicious  action  brought  before 
it,  to  decide  that  it  is  deserving  of  punishment.  This  characteristic 
is  brought  before  us  by  the  phrases  so  often  applied  to  them, — 
forms,  laws,  rules,  canons,  and  principles.  They  lead  and  guide 
the  deeper  mental  action,  just  as  the  chemical  and  vital  properties 
conduct  and  control  the  composition  of  bodies  and  the  organization 
01  plants.  It  is  to  be  carefully  noticed  that,  as  regulative  prin- 
ciples, they  are  not  dependent,  in  themselves  or  in  their  action,  on 
our  observation  of  them  —  indeed  they  must  be  guiding  the  mind 
before  we  can  observe  them  ;  still  less  are  they  dependent  on  the 
will  of  the  possessor,  which  has  merely  an  indirect  control  over 
them,  and  this  only  l)y  bringing  before  the  cognitive  or  representa- 
tive powers  of  the  mind  the  objects  which  evoke  them. 

'  Tlie  plirase  regulative  has  been  used  by  Kant  in  Krltik  der  reine  Vernunft  transcen. 
Doc.  der  Urtheilskraft,  Chap,  iii.,  where  he  speaks  of  certain  principles  as  being  constitutive 
and  others  regulative.  The  distinction  proceeds  on  certain  Kantian  views,  and  cannot 
be  admitted  by  auy  natural  realist.  Sir  W.  Hamilton  has  adopted  the  phrase  regulative 
{Metap/iiy-!ic>>,  Lect.  38),  and  agrees  so  far  with  Kant  that  he  reckons  many  of  the  regula- 
tive principles  of  the  mind,  such  as  those  about  space  and  time  and  cause,  as  guarautee- 
iug  no  objective  reality.  The  phrase  is  a  good  one,  but  in  adopting  it  care  must  bo  taken 
to  dissociate  it  from  all  the  peculiarities  of  the  Kantian  and  Hamiltonian  philosophy. 
The  regulative  principles  guide  the  mind  so  as  that  it  discovers  what  is  in  things,  whereas, 
according  to  Kant,  they  guarantee  nothing  as  to  things. 


BOOK  II.]        MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  37 

4.  They  are  catholic  or  common.  That  is,  they  are  in  every 
human  mind.  Xot  that  they  are  in  all  men  as  formalized  prin- 
ciples ;  under  this  aspect,  as  we  shall  see  forthwith,  they  come 
before  the  minds  of  comparatively  few.  Some  of  them  are  perliaps 
not  even  manifested  in  all  minds  ;  certainly  some  of  them  arc  not 
manifested,  in  their  higiicr  forms,  in  the  souls  of  all.  In  infants 
some  of  them  liavc  not  yet  made  their  appearance,  and  among 
persons  low  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  they  do  not  come  out  in 
their  loftier  exercises, — just  as  the  plant  does' not  all  at  once  come 
into  full  flower,  just  as  in  unfavourable  circumstances  it  may  never 
come  into  seed  at  all.  Still  the  capacity  is  there,  needing  only 
favourable  circumstances— that  is,  the  appropriate  objects  pressed 
on  the  attention— to  foster  it  into  developed  forms.  Under  this 
aspect  the  epithets  common,  catholic,  liave  been  applied  to  them  ; 
they  have  been  represented  as  the  universal  attributes  of  humanity, 
and  as  belonging  to  man  as  man. 

But  it  is  to  be  specially  noticed  that  in  this  whole  general  view 
of  them  they  are  not  before  consciousness  as  principles.  They  do 
indeed  come  out  into  consciousness,  not,  however,  as  laws,  but 
as  individual  convictions.  This  negative  characteristic  has  been 
often  referred  to  when  they  have  been  spoken  of  as  latent,  occult, 
hiding  themselves,  as  roots  covered  up  in  the  substance  of  the 
soul,  as  foundations  beneath  the  ground,  as  faculties  requiring  to 
be  developed,  and  as  evoked  into  exercise  only  on  the  occasion  of 
experience. 

II.  They  may  be  contemplated  as  convictions  manifested  in 
CONSCIOUSNESS.  Hcncc  they  are  called  especially  intuitions,  spon- 
taneous or  natural  convictions,  innate  ideas,  and  primitive  beliefs 
and  judgments.  It  is  only  under  this  aspect  that  we  can  directly 
apply  to  tliem  the  tests  of  intuition  specified  in  last  section. 
Under  what  restriction  they  apply  to  our  intuitions  as  regulative 
or  as  generalized  principles  may  be  afterwards  pointed  out.  We 
have  already  in  our  survey  gathered  what  are  some  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  tlicse  our  conscious  convictions ;  still,  what  we  before 
enounced  will  require  to  be  formally  stated  in  its  proper  place  along- 
side of  some  other  theoretical  characteristics,  to  be  now  unfolded. 


38  CHABACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

1.  They  are  perceptions.  This  feature  was  canglit  and  has  been 
expressed  by  tliose  who  speak  of  them  as  perceptions,  appercep- 
tions, senses,  appreliensions,  and  who  represent  them  as  seeing, 
looking,  regarding,  contemplating. 

2.  They  look  at  objects.  Hence  they  have  been  represented  as 
comprising  knowledge,  cognition,  and  discernment.  It  is  of  the 
greater  moment  to  bring  out  this  characteristic,  from  the  circum- 
stance that  they  have  often  been  too  mucli  dissociated  from  objects. 
In  reading  some  of  the  exaggerated  accounts  of  them,  the  impres- 
sion is  apt  to  be  left  that  they  are  formed  by  the  native  power  of 
the  mind,  independent  of  things  altogether  ;  and  even  in  more 
guarded  statements  the .  presentation  of  objects  is  spoken  of  as 
merely  the  occasion  on  which  they  spring  up.'  In  opposition  to 
all  this,  I  maintain  that  they  are  perceptions  of  objects,  of  objects 
themselves  or  something  in  objects.  Sometimes  the  objects  are 
external  to  tlie  mind,  as  when  I  intuitively  look  on  body  as 
extended  or  on  space  as  having  no  limits.  In  other  cases  the 
objects  arc  witliin  the  mind,  as  when  I  look  on  self,  and  discover 
that  it  has  being  and  personality,  or  on  a  certain  rej)resentation  in 
the  mind,  say  of  a  benevolent  action,  which  I  discern  to  be  good. 
Or  the  intuition  may  manifest  itself  in  the  form  of  judgments  or 
comparisons  ;  but  even  in  such  it  is  a  perception  of  objects  as 
having  points  of  relation.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  the  regulative 
principles  of  the  mind  tliat  they  lead  us  to  look  at  objects,  and  to 
discover  what  is  in  them. 

3.  They  look  at  objects  as  singulars.  In  tliis  respect  they  are 
analogous  to  the  senses  and  consciousness,  and  have  often  been 
characterized  as  senses  and  as  consciousnesses.  This  peculiarity 
has  already  been  explained  in  a  general  way. 

4.  They  are  immediate.  That  is,  our  minds,  in  intuition,  gaze 
directly  on  tlie  object.  Hence  they  have  been  called  feelings, — 
language  which  may  be  allowed  if  meant  merely  to  .express  that 
they  arc  analogous  to  feeling  or  touch  as  it  feels  or  handles  an 
object,  but  whicli  is  of  a  most  misleading  character  if  intended  to 
signify  tliat  they  are  of  the  nature  of  emotions.  Under  this  aspect 
they  have  been    called    "  visions,"    "  inspirations,"    "  revelations." 

»  This  view  is  examined  infra,  Part  in.  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  vi.     Supplemenlary. 


BOOK  II.]        MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  39 

Hence  too  tlie  special  name  Intuitions  applied  to  tlicni,  to  denote 
that  t]iey  see  tlie  object  as  it  were  face  to  face,  und  with  nothing 
coming  between  to  aid  the  view  on  the  one  hand,  or  obstruct  it  on 
the  other.  This  character  it  is  which  affords  what  I  have  described 
as  the  primary  test,  tliat  is,  self-evidence. 

In  the  case  of  many  objects,  we  cannot  look  on  them  directly. 
Thus  we  who  live  in  the  nineteenth  century  cannot  be  spectators 
of  the  events  v/hich  happened  in  the  first  century  ;  when  dwelling 
in  these  islands,  w^e  cannot  gaze  on  the  Himalayas,  or  Andes  ;  we 
can  contemplate  such  objects  only  indirectly,  and  througli  some- 
thing else  as  a  medium.  But  in  every  intuition  we  look  at  once 
on  the  corresponding  object;  it  is  thus  we  are  conscious  imme- 
diately of  self  in  action ;  thus  that  we  gaze  on  body  as  occupying 
space ;  thus  that  we  regard  space  as  unbounded ;  tlius  that  we 
regard  a  certain  disposition  as  good  or  as  evil. 

But  to  prevent  misapprehension  it  is  necessary  here  to  offer  an 
explanation.  When  I  say  that  the  object  is  present,  I  do  not 
mean  by  this  that  the  object  must  be  a  bodily  one,  or  one  external 
to  the  mind.  The  object  may  quite  as  frequently  be  a  mental  as 
a  material  one.  The  object  may  even  be  represented,  in  a  loose 
and  inaccurate  sense,  as  an  absent  one.  Thus  I  may  pronounce  of 
an  event  which  happened  far  av/ay,  in  India,  that  it  must  have 
liad  a  cause,  and  of  a  deed  of  self-sacrihce,  done  a  thousand  years 
ago,  that  it  must  have  been  good.  But  then  it  is  not,  properly 
speaking,  to  the  distant  event  that  the  intuition  looks,  but  to  the 
representation  of  it  in  the  mind.  It  is  only  mediately,  througli 
the  representation,  that  the  intuition  can  refer  to  the  actual  occur- 
rence, and  this  on  the  supposition  that  the  representation  is  correct ; 
and  if  the  representation  be  erroneous,  or  even  mutilated,  or  im- 
perfect, it  cannot  be  legitimately  applied  to  the  event.  Correctly 
speaking,  the  olject  is  always  present  when  the  intuition  gazes  on 
it ;  it  is  either  a  bodily  object  immediately  before  the  mind,  or  it 
is  a  presentation  or  ie])resentation  within  the  mind  itself 

5.  There  is  a  conviction  of  necessity  attached  to  every  one  of  them. 
ITence  they  have  been  described  as  irresistible,  unavoidable,  com- 
pelling belief,  and  not  admitting  of  doubt  or  dispute.  We  have 
already  had  this  character  under  our  notice,  and  it  may  yet  come 


40  CHARACTEnS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

before  us  in  its  applications,  and  in  regard  to  the  supposed  diver- 
sity in  tlie  necessity  as  attaclied  to  different  convictions,  and  it  is 
not  needful  to  enter  more  minutely  into  its  nature  in  this  general 
survey.  It  should  be  carefully  noticed  that  the  necessity  attaches 
itself  directly  only  to  our  individual  perceptions.  The  general 
formula  carries  with  it  no  such  conviction  till  it  is  shown  that  it 
has  been  correctly  formed.  There  may  be  legitimate  doubts  and 
disputes  as  to  many  proposed  philosophic  maxims,  as  to  whether 
they  are  or  are  not  correct.  Still,  as  will  be  shown,  the  necessity 
being  in  the  singulars,  goes  up  into  tlio  universals  on  the  condition 
of  the  universal  being  properly  formed. 

6.  They  are  original  and  independent.  Hence  they  have  been 
called  first,  primary,  or  primitive  truths,  and  been  described  as 
origins,  apxai-,  or  original  jDrinciples,  seeds,  roots,  and  starting 
points,  and  characterized  as  underived,  independent,  self-sufi&cient. 
The  mind  spontaneously  starts  with  such,  it  sets  out  from  them, 
and  in  doing  so,  feels  that  it  has  need  of  no  probation  or  foreign 
support  of  any  kind. 

A  large  body  of  our  convictions,  even  of  the  surest,  are  derived ; 
they  are  dependent  on  something  else.  Thus  we  are  dependent 
for  our  historical  information  on  the  testimony  of  our  fellow-men ; 
for  our  belief  in  the  great  mysteries  opened  in  the  Bible,  on  the 
testimony  of  God ;  for  our  conviction  of  the  propositions  in  the 
Sixth  Book  of  Euclid,  on  the  prefixed  axioms,  and  on  the  proposi- 
tions in  the  other  five  books,  and  generally  for  the  last  conclusion 
of  a  chain  of  reasoning,  on  all  the  links  which  have  preceded. 
But  in  intuition,  or,  as  it  may  be  called,  intuitive  reason,  our  con- 
viction hangs  on  nothing  else.  That  the  whole,  orange  or  earth, 
is  equal  to  the  sum  of  its  several  parts,  is  a  truth  which  depends 
on  no  other. 

There  may  be  many  asseverations  to  which  we  do  not  give  our 
assent  till  evidence  of  some  kind  is  furnished.  There  may  be  true 
propositions  from  which  we  withhold  our  concurrence  till  they  are 
proven.  Very  possibly  there  may  be  inhabitants  on  that  other 
tide  of  the  moon  which  no  human  eye  has  seen,  but  I  wait  for 
eddcnce  before  I  give  a  decision  one  way  or  another.  It  seems 
\ery  certain  that  there  have  been  volcanoes  in  the  moon,  but  men 


BOOK  II.]        MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  41 

did  not  give  their  credence  till  traces  of  eruptive  formations  were 
discovered  by  the  telescope.  But  there  are  propositions  which  do 
not  require  proof,  even  as  they  do  not  admit  of  proof,  and  yet  our 
conviction  of  them,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  is  as  strong  as  of  the 
truths  most  firmly  established  by  probation.  There  are  some 
apprehensions,  some  propositions,  in  regard  to  which  the  mind 
sees  that  it  needs  mediate  proof  in  order  to  convince  it  that  they 
imply  a  reality  or  a  truth  ;  but  there  are  others,  in  which  it  sees 
that  they  have  in  themselves  all  that  is  needful  to  gain  our  assent. 
It  is  not  because  of  any  defect  in  the  veracity  of  intuitive  truths, 
that  they  do  not  admit  of  probation  ;  it  is  rather  because  of  the 
fullness  and  strength  of  their  veracity.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  owing  to 
a  deficiency  in  certain  truths,  or  rather,  a  deficiency  in  our  minds 
with  respect  to  them,  that  they  require  something  to  lean  on. 
Thus  it  is  because  of  some  defect  or  perplexity  (to  us)  in  the  truth, 
that  mathematicians  cannot  solve,  except  approximately,  the  prob- 
lem of  three  bodies  attracting  each  other.  It  is  because  of  the 
self-sufficiency  of  certain  truths,  such  as  that  the  thinking  me 
exists,  and  that  extended  bodies  exist,  and  that  gratitude  is  a 
virtue,  it  is  because  our  minds  are  so  constituted  as  to  see  them  at 
once,  that  they  require  no  proof ;  we  need  no  other  light  in  which 
to  see  them,  they  shine  in  their  own  light. 

But  let  us  properly  understand  and  limit  the  account  now  given  ; 
when  they  are  said  to  be  independent,  it  does  not  mean  that  they 
are  independent  of  things  :  we  have  before  seen  that  our  intuitions 
are  perceptions  of  or  regarding  objects. 

7.  Some  of  ihem  are  catholic, — that  is,  in  all  men.  Hence  they 
have  been  described  as  common  ideas  and  notions.  We  have  seen 
that  as  regulative  powers  they  are  in  all  men,  without  excep- 
tion. But  all  of  them  do  not,  therefore,  come  forth  in  actual 
energies  ;  many  of  them  in  their  developed  and  manifested  form 
are  the  result  of  growth,  and  some  of  them  seem  to  lie  dormant  in 
many  minds  from  the  want  of  proper  fostering  circumstances. 
Still  there  are  some  of  them,  such  as  the  intuition  of  self  and  the 
intuition  of  body  in  space,  which  are  formed  by  all  men  in  their 
individual  and  concrete  form. 


42  CEABACTEBS   OF  OUB   INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

III.    They  may  be    contemplated    as  Notions    or    Principles 

FORMED  BY  ABSTRACTION  AND  GENERALIZATION.  Under  this  aspoct 
they  are  Koival  Hwoiai,  Trpwrat  tvvotai,  npioTa  vcnjfiaTa,  naturcd 
judicia,  a  lyriori  notions,  definitions,  maxims,  and  axioms. 

Thus  considered  they  cannot  be  represented  as  common  or  uni- 
versal in  the  sense  of  being  in  all  men.  If  we  look  at  tlie  hundreds 
of  millions  of  human  beings  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  including 
infants,  children,  savages,  and  the  unreflecting  masses,  there  is  but 
a  very  small  minority  of  the  family  of  man  who  have  ever  had 
such  notions  or  maxims  before  them.  Every  human  being,  if  he 
sees  an  object  before  him,  will  refuse  to  give  his  assent  to  the 
assertion  that  this  object  does  not  exist ;  but  how  few  beyond  the 
limited  circle  of  professed  metaphysicians  have  ever  had  con- 
sciously before  tliem  the  principle  that  it  is  impossible  for  the 
same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  at  the  same  time.  Millions  of 
men,  women,  and  children  are  every  hour  acting  on  tlie  intuition 
of  cause  and  effect — are  taking  food,  for  example,  in  the  belief  that 
it  will  nourish  them,  though  they  never  have  had  the  principle 
consciously  before  them,  and  know  not  so  much  as  that  there  is  a 
principle  of  causation.     But  under  this  view, 

1.  The  General  Maxim  is  necessary,  on  the  condition  of  the 
generalization  out  of  the  individucd  convictions  being  properly  formed. 
It  is  to  be  constantly  kept  in  mind,  that  the  necessity  attaches  in 
the  first  instance  to  the  singular  conviction  looking  to  its  objects. 
But  the  necessity  being  in  the  individuals,  may  be  made  to  go  up 
into  the  general,  provided  the  general  has  been  legitimately  drawn 
from  the  individuals.  With  this  proviso,  a  very  important  one, 
however,  the  maxim  is  not  only  true,  it  is  necessarily  true,  it  can- 
not be  otherwise.  If  any  one  were  to  lay  down  the  principle  tliat 
"  everything  must  have  a  cause,"  he  would  not  be  announcing 
a  necessary  truth  ;  for  while  there  is  a  necessary  conviction  in 
every  exercise  of  mind  regarding  causation,  he  has  not  seized  it 
properly,  nor  expressed  it  correctly.  But  if  the  maxim  that 
"  everything  which  begins  to  be  must  have  a  cause"  be,  as  I  main- 
tain it  is,  the  proper  generalization  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  in- 
dividual conviction,  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  necessary  one.  In 
this  respect  it  difi"ers  from  the  general  laws  of  nature  reached  by 


BOOK  II.]        MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  43 

observation ;  as  for  example,  that  liydrogcu  chemically  comLines 
"n'ith  oxygen  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  eight.  "We  cannot,  from 
the  bare  contemplation  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  say  that  they 
must  unite  in  any  particular  proportion,  or  that  they  shall  unite 
at  all.  The  law  is  reached  by  the  pure  observation  of  particular 
cases,  and  these,  however  many,  are  still  limited  in  number ;  for 
all  the  cases  of  the  mutual  action  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen  in  the 
universe,  never  can  fall  under  our  notice.  The  law  may,  after  all, 
be  a  mere  modification  of  a  higher  and  wider  law  ;  there  may  be 
exceptions  to  it  in  other  worlds ;  it  is  in  no  sense  absolutely  or 
universally  certain.  But  on  the  bare  contemplation  of  two  given 
straight  lines,  I  perceive,  without  any  succession  of  trials,  that 
they  cannot  enclose  a  space.  I  perceive  tliat  this  would  be  true 
of  any  other  two  straight  lines  that  could  fall  under  my  notice> 
and  thus  I  reach  the  general  maxim  that  no  two  straight  lines  can 
enclose  a  space,  a  maxim  admitting  of  exceptions  at  no  time  and 
at  no  place.  In  regard  to  the  one  class  of  general  truths,  I  have 
formed  a  law  from  a  necessarily  limited,  out  of  an  indefinite 
number  of  cases.  In  regard  to  the  otlier,  our  generalizations  are 
of  convictions  in  our  own  mind,  each  of  which  carries  necessity  in 
it.  In  order  to  the  formation  of  the  latter,  we  have  not  to  go  out 
in  search  of  external  instances  in  the  mental  or  material  world, 
nor  to  number  and  to  weigh  such ;  we  have  all  the  elements  in 
each  of  our  convictions ;  and  if  we  generalize  properly,  by  what 
in  some  cases,  is  an  easy,  but  in  others  a  somewhat  difficult  pro- 
cess, we  reach  general  truths,  which  have  the  same  necessity  as 
the  individual  convictions. 

2.  They  are  Universal,  Immutahle,  Eternal:  only  however  on 
the  same  condition  as  they  are  necessary,  that  is,  on  tlie  understand- 
ing tlnit  the  general  maxim  is  duly  fashioned  out  of  the  individual 
convictions.  But  here  it  will  be  necessary  to  distinguish  between 
two  applications  of  the  word  "universal"  which  have  often  been 
confounded.  Sometimes  a  principle  is  called  universal  because  it 
is  in  all  men  or  avowed  by  all  men.  I  have  in  tliis  treatise  adopted 
the  v.'ord  "  catholic,"  or  "  common,"  to  express  this  property  of 
intuition.  But  when  we  say  a  truth  is  universal,  vre  may  mean 
tliat  it  is  universally  true,  that  is,  admits  of  no  exceptions,  and  it 


4i  CHARACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

is  in  this  latter  application  I  use  the  word  "universal."  Univer- 
sality in  this  sense  follows  from  necessity  ;  the  maxim  which  is 
necessarily,  must  be  universally,  true.'  It  is  only  in  tliis  meaning 
that  the  term  can  be  applied  to  the  maxims  which  express  in  a 
jroneral  form  the  law  of  our  intuitive  convictions.  Such  maxims 
admit  of  exceptions  at  no  time  and  in  no  place.  They  are  true  in 
our  own  land,  but  they  are  true  also  in  other  lands  ;  true  in  our 
world,  they  are  true  in  all  other  worlds  ;  true  in  all  ages  of  time, 
they  are  equally  true  through  all  eternity.  Hence  they  have  been 
called  expressively  unchangeable,  imperishable,  and  eternal  truths. 

3.  They  are  fundamental.  Hence  they  have  been  described  as 
radical,  as  grounds  or  foundations,  and  called  fundamental  laws  of 
thought  and  belief.  They  are  the  truths  we  come  to,  when  we 
analyse  a  discussion  into  its  elements.  We  may  ever  set  out  with 
them  in  argument  or  in  speculation,  provided  we  have  adequately 
generalized  them.  All  demonstrated  and  derived  truths  will  be 
found,  if  we  pursue  them  sufficiently  far  down,  to  be  resting  on 
such  fundamental  truths.  In  controversies  on  profound  topics, 
especially  in  theology  and  metaphysics,  those  who  engage  in  them 
feel  themselves  ever  coming  down  to  a  ground  beneath  which  they 
cannot  get.  In  searching  into  the  structure  of  argument,  we  find, 
as  we  follow  it  from  conclusion  to  premiss,  hanging  on  a  premiss 
which    is    self-supporting.       The    sceptic    is    ever   compelling    the 

»  That  a  truth  is  accepted  by  common  or  catholic  consent,  and  that  it  is  without  ex- 
ception, are  not  the  same,  though  they  have  often  been  confounded  under  the  one  epithet 
"universal."  Sir  W.  Hamilton  says  (Note  A.  p.  754,  Reid's  Collected  Writings):  "Neces- 
sity and  universality  may  be  regarded  as  coincident;  for  when  a  belief  is  necessary,  it 
is,  eo  ipso,  universal ;  and  that  a  belief  is  universal  is  a  certain  index  that  it  must  be 
necessary  (see  Leibnitz,  NouveauK  Easais^  i.  i.  4)."  Hamilton  means  by  universality, 
universality  of  belief;  which  also  Leibnitz  means  in  the  passage  referred  to— the  lan- 
guage he  uses  is,  "  consentement  universe!."  But  it  is  surely  conceivable  (I  do  not  say 
actual),  that  a  conviction  might  be  necessary  to  one  man  and  not  to  all  men ;  and  there 
are  in  fact  beliefs  in  man,  which  are  universal,  such  as  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow, 
which  are  not  necessary.  Kant  used  "  universal"  in  the  sense  of  "  true  without  exception," 
and  very  properly  remarks,  that  the  necessity  and  universality  belong  inseparably  to 
each  other,  but  that  sometimes  the  one  and  sometimes  the  other  test  admits  of  the  easier 
or  more  effective  application:  "  Nothwendigkeit  und  strenge  AUgemeinheit  sind  also 
sichere  Keuuzeichen  einer  Erkenntniss  a  priori,  und  gehoren  auch  unzertrenulich  zu 
einander.  Weil  es  aber  im  Gebrauche  dcrselben  bisweilen  leichter  ist,  die  empirische 
Beschranktheit  derselben,  als  die  Zufiilligkeit  in  den  Urtheilen,  oder  es  auch  mannigmal 
cinleuchtender  ist,  die  unbeschrankte  AUgemeinheit,  die  wir  einem  Urtheile  bcilegen,  als 
die  Nothwendigkeit  desselben  zu  zeigen,  so  ist  rathsam,  sich  gedachter  beider  Kriterien, 
deren  jedes  fUr  sich  unfehlbar  ist,  abgesondert  zu  bedienen"  {Kritih  d.  r.  V.  Enleit. 
Auf.  2.  Werke,  bd.  ii.  p.  697  :    Rosenkranz). 


BOOK  II.]         3IARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  45 

philosopher  to  go  down  to  these  depths.  The  dognicatist,  in  build- 
ing his  structure,  is  entitled  to  start  with  them  as  assumptions, — 
he  must  be  tlie  more  careful  that  what  he  builds  on  be  really  the 
rock.  On  them  other  truths  may  rest,  but  they  tliemselves  rest 
on  none.  There  may  ever  be  an  appeal  to  them,  but  there  can 
never  be  an  appeal  from  them. 

Now  in  order  to  avoid  confusion,  and  the  error  which  springs 
from  confusion,  it  is  essential  that  we  go  round  these  three  sides 
of  this  shield  of  truth,  that  we  read  what  is  on  each,  and  carefully 
distinguish  the  inscriptions.  If  any  one  having  occasion  to  employ 
intuition  neglect  to  do  this,  he  will  ever  be  liable  to  affirm  of  the 
intuition  under  one  aspect,  what  is  true  of  it  only  in  another,  or 
to  turn  the  wrong  side  towards  the  weapons  of  the  assailant 
while  he  keeps  the  wrong  side  towards  himself.  When  we 
are  required  to  speak  of  them  distinctively,  our  intuitions  under 
the  first  aspect  may  be  called  native  laws  or  regulative  prin- 
ciples ;  under  the  second  aspect,  native,  spontaneous,  or  necessary, 
convictions  ;  under  the  third  aspect,  universal  truths  or  formalized 
maxims. 

As  Innate  or  Regulative  Principles  they  are  in  all  men  at  all 
ages  ;  but  it  is  wrong  to  represent  them  as  being  before  the  con- 
sciousness, as  being  immediately  under  our  notice,  as  capable  of 
being  discovered  without  abstraction  or  generalization,  or  observa- 
tion, or  trouble  of  any  kind.  It  is  wrong  to  speak  of  them  as 
ideas  in  the  Lockian  sense  of  tlie  term,  that  is,  as  apprehensions 
before  consciousness. 

As  Spontaneous  Convictions  they  are  immediately  under  the 
eye  of  consciousness,  but  tlierc  they  are  not  in  the  form  of  philo- 
sophic principles,  nor  can  we  say  of  every  one  of  them  they  appear 
in  all  men,  and  from  their  earliest  infancy. 

As  Universal  Truths  or  General  Maxims  they  are  in  an  especial 
sense  philosophic  principles,  but  then  sucli  as  they  are  known  only 
to  comparatively  few  ;  they  can  be  appealed  to  in  argument  only 
on  tlie  condition  that  their  law  has  been  gathered  by  induction 
and  carefully  expressed,  and  while  there  can  be  no  dispute  as  to 
tlie   spontaneous  convictions,   there  may  be  legitimate  discussions 


46  CHARACTERS   OF   OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

as  to  whether  they  have  been  properly  generalized  in  the  proffered 
axiom.' 

At  the  same  time  these  are  after  all  only  the  diverse  aspects  of 
one  great  general  fact,  and  they  have  relations  all  to  each  and  each 
to  all.  There  is  first  a  mind  with  its  native  capacities,  each  with 
its  rule  of  action.  In  due  time  these  come  out  into  action,  some 
of  them  at  an  earlier,  and  some  of  them  at  a  later  date,  on  the 
appropriate  objects  being  presented,  and  the  actions  are  before 
consciousness.  As  being  before  consciousness  we  can  observe 
them  by  reflection,  and  discover  the  nature  of  the  law  which  has 
all  along  been  in  the  mind,  and  in  its  very  constitution. 

SECT.    III.— CERTAIN  MISAPPREHENSIONS   IN   REGARD   TO   THE   CHARACTER 
OF  INTUITIVE  CONVICTIONS. 

Looking  on  the  above  as  the  properties  and  marks  of  the  intui- 
tive convictions  of  the  mind,  we  see  that  a  wrong  account  is  often 
given  of  them. 

1.  It  is  wrong  to  represent  them  as  unaccountable  feelings,  as 
blind  instincts,  as  unreasonable  impulses.  They  have  nothing 
whatever  of  the  nature  of  those  feelings  or  emotions  which  raise 
up  excitement  within  us,  and  attach  us  to  certain  objects,  and  draw 
us  away  from  others.  Nor  should  they  be  put  under  the  same 
head  as  the  instincts  which  prompt  us  to  crave  for  food  when  we 
are  hungry,  or  which  lead  the  dog  to  follow  his  master.  In  such 
cases  the  parties  obey  an  impulse,  which  is  not  accompanied  with 
knowledge  or  judgment  of  any  kind,  whereas  in  the  perceptions  of 
intuition  there  is  always  knowledge  involved,  and  this  the  most 
certain  of  all,  immediate  knowledge,  and  in  many  of  them  there  is 
judgment  looking  directly  on  the  objects  compared.  So  far  from 
being  unreasonable,  they  involve  a  primary  exercise  of  reason  supe- 
rior to  all  secondary  or  derivative  processes,  which  ever  depend  on 
the  primary,  and  are  often  inferior  in  certainty,  and  can  in  no  circum- 
stances rise  higher  than  the  fountain  from  which  they  have  flowed. 

2.  It  is  wrong  to  represent  man,  so   far  as  he  yields  to  these 

'  In  writing  this  section  I  have  kept  before  me  throughout  Hamilton's  famous  Note  A, 
and  have  freely  borrowed  from  it.  But  Hamilton  has  not  distinguished  between  these 
three  aspects  of  common  sense. 


BOOK  II.]         MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  47 

convictions,  as  being  under  some  sort  of  stern  and  relentless  fatality 
wbicli  compels  him  to  go,  without  yielding  him  light  of  any  kind. 
No  doubt  they  constrain  him  to  acknowledge  the  existence  of 
certain  objects,  and  the  certainty  of  special  truths,  but  this,  not  by 
denying  him  light,  but  by  affording  him  the  fullest  conceivable 
light,  such  liglit  that  he  cannot  possibly  mistake  the  object  or 
wander  from  the  path.  No  doubt  he  cannot  have  mediate  proof, 
but  it  is  because  he  has  what  the  faculties  which  judge  of  proof 
declare  to  be  vastly  higher,  immediate  evidence,  or  self-evidence. 
We  need  no  secondary  proof,  for  we  have  primary,  to  convince  us 
that  two  parallel  lines  can  never  meet.  Our  intuitions  do  not 
compel  us  against  the  reason,  but  they  convince  us  in  the  highest 
exercise  of  reason,  and  they  lead  us  not  against,  but  by  the  assent 
of  our  clearest  and  profoundest  intelligence.  No  man  is  ever, 
even  in  his  most  wayward  m.oods,  spontaneously  tempted  to  com- 
plain because  bound  to  yield  to  these  convictions.  When  he 
reflects  on  their  nature  he  should  rejoice  because  such  is  his 
constitution  that  he  is  led  to  follow  and  obey  them. 

3.  It  is  wrong  to  represent  these  self-evident  truths  as  being 
truths  merely  to  the  individual,  or  truths  merely  to  man,  or  beings 
constituted  like  man.  There  are  some  who  speak  and  write  as  if 
what  is  truth  to  one  man  might  not  be  truth  to  another  man ;  as 
if  what  is  truth  to  mankind  might  not  be  truth  to  other  intelligent 
beino-s.'     This   account  might  be   correct   if  the  convictions  were 


1  It  is  not  easy  to  determine  the  precise  pliilosophy  of  the  Sophists,  if  indeed  they  had 
a  philosophy.  The  doctrine  of  Heraclitus  was  that  all  is  and  is  not;  that  while  it  does 
come  into  being,  it  forthwith  ceases  to  be.  Protagoras,  proceeding  on  this  doctrine, 
declared,  ^7?(7t  yup  ttov  Travrcjv  ;);()77/icirwv  fierpov  uvOpu-ov  elvai,  tuv  fiiv  ovtuv,  uc  eari,  tuv 
61  nil  OVTUV,  oig  oi'K  tanv.  This  S aerates  expounds  as  meaning  ug  ola  fiiv  huaara  ifiol  (paU 
ve-ai,  Toiav-a  fiiv  eariv  Ijiol,  ola  6i  coi  (Plato,  Theodetvs,  24  :  Bekker).  Aristotle  rep- 
resents Protagoras  as  maintaining  that  ra  doKoSvra  ndvra  egtIv  u?.i]6o  koI  tu  (paivbfieva 
{Metiqih.  Lib.  in.  Chap.  v. :  Bonitz).  Again,  Lib.  x.  Chap,  vi.,  this  /cat  yap  Uelvog  ^n 
iruvTuv  XPWUTUV  elvai  fierpov  uvdpuTTOv,  ovBlv  erepov  Myuv  ?/  ru  6okovv  eKuaTu  tovto  Ka\ 
elvai  TTayiuq.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  these  accounts  there  is  an  interpretation  put  on 
the  language  of  Protagoras.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Plato,  and  Aristotle  too, 
laboured  each  in  his  own  way  to  show,  in  opposition  to  these  views,  that  there  was  a 
r.'ality  and  a  truth  independent  of  the  individual  and  of  appearance.  (See  Infra^  Chap,  ill.) 
It  is  an  instructive  circumstance  that  the  Sensationalist  school  have  reached  in  our  day  the 
very  position  of  the  Sophists,  and  regard  it  as  impossible  to  reach  independent  and  necessary 
trnih,  if  indeed  any  such  truth  exists.  We  might  expect  that  such  men  would  seek  to 
justify  the  Sophists,  and  disparage  the  high  arguments  of  Plato.  Cudworth,  speaking  of 
the  theon-tical  universal  propositions   in   geometry  and  metaphysics,  has  finely  remarked 


48  CHARACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS.   [rAUT  i. 

borne  in  upon  the  mind  by  a  blind  natural  impulse.  But  what 
we  perceive  by  an  original  intuition  is  a  reality,  is  a  truth  ;  we 
know  it  to  be  so,  we  judge  it  to  be  so.  And  it  is  a  reality,  a  truth, 
whether  others  know  and  acknowledge  it  or  no.  It  is  a  trutli,  not 
merely  to  uic  or  you,  but  to  all  men  ;  not  only  to  all  men,  but  to 
all  intelligence  capable  of  discovering  truths  of  that  particular 
nature.  That  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space  is  a  truth 
everywhere,  in  the  planet  Mars  as  well  as  in  the  planet  Earth. 
That  ingratitude  is  morally  evil  must  hold  good  in  all  other  worlds 
as  well  as  in  this  world  of  ours,  where  sin  so  much  abounds. 

4.  It  is  wrong  to  represent  all  our  intuitive  convictions  as  being 
formed  within  us  from  our  birth.  The  account  given  of  them  by 
some  would  leave  the  impression  that  they  must  all  appear  in 
infancy.  This  is  commonly  the  view  taken  by  those  who  throw 
ridicule  upon  them.  What  can  be  so  preposterous,  they  say,  as  to 
suppose  that  babies  are  meditating  on  the  infinite  from  the  time 
they  escape  from  the  womb,  and  distinguishing  between  good  and 
evil  before  they  know  the  right  hand  from  the  left  ?  The  account 
which  has  been  given  in  these  chapters  of  our  original  convictions 
shows  that  they  may  not  all  make  their  appearance  from  our 
earliest  years.  They  are  formed,  we  have  seen,  on  the  contempla- 
tion of  objects  presenting  themselves  from  without  or  from  within. 
Some  of  these  objects  press  themselves  on  the  notice,  I  believe, 
from  the  very  first  action  of  the  soul,  and  the  intuitions  directed  to 
these  are  exercised  with  the  earliest  employments  of  intelligence. 
From  the  very  dawn  of  existence  the  infant  must  envisage  self,  and 
body  acting  on  self.  But  there  are  other  convictions  which  cannot 
be  formed  till  a  later  date,  because  the  objects  to  which  they  relate 
cannot  be  presented  till  the  intelligence  is  advanced.  Thus  I 
believe  that  the  conviction  of  moral  good  and  evil  arises  on  the 
presentation  of  voluntary  actions  done  by  intelligent  beings,  and 
the   mind   must  have   made   progress    before  it  can   form  such   a 

that  It  is  true  of  every  one  of  them  whenever  "  it  is  rightly  understood  by  any  particular 
mind,  whatsoever  and  wheresoever  it  be  ;  the  truth  of  it  is  no  private  thing,  nor  relative 
to  that  particular  mind.only,  but  is  u7.r]0ii  Ka6o?UKuv,  '  a  catholic  and  universal  truth,'  as  the 
Stoics  speak,  throughout  the  whole  world;  nay,  it  would  not  fail  to  be  a  truth  throughout 
infinite  worlds,  if  there  were  so  many,  to  all  such  minds  as  would  rightly  understand  it" 
{Immutable  ATorality,  Book  iv.  Chap.  v). 


BOOK  II.]         MARKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  49 

notion,  and  look  into  it  to  see  what  is  involved  in  it.  The  intuition 
in  regard  to  the  infinite  is  called  forth  only  when  we  contemplate 
such  objects  as  space  and  time,  or  God,  and  the  comprehension  of 
these  implies  a  considerable  maturity  of  intelligence.  We  tlms 
see  that  though  all  our  intuitive  convictions  are  native,  yet  some 
of  them  are  the  result  of  growth.  Some  of  them  do  not  appear  in 
infancy ;  some  of  them  appear  in  children,  and  among  persons  low 
in  the  scale  of  understanding,  such  as  savages,  only  in  a  very  low 
and  rudimentary  form.  All  of  them  are  capable  of  growing  with 
the  growth  of  our  intelligence,  and  even  with  the  growth  of  our 
voluntary  and  emotional  nature.  Some  of  them  are  at  one  and 
the  same  time  natural,  and  the  issue  of  a  long  development,  like  the 
flower  and  the  fruit,  which  are  in  the  plant  from  its  embryo,  but 
may  not  bo  actually  formed  till  there  has  been  a  stalk  and  branches 
and  leaves  and  buds. 


SECT.  IV.— CERTAIN  PRACTICAL  CHARACTERISTICS. 

From  the  theoretical  characters  there  flow  some  others  of  a  more 
practical  nature. 

1.  All  men  who  have  had  their  attention  addressed  to  the  ob- 
jects, are  in  fact  led  by  spontaneous  convictions,  and  this,  whatever 
be  their  professed  speculative  opinions.  This  follows  from  the 
circumstance  that  they  are  self-evident,  and  that  men,  all  men, 
must  give  their  assent  to  them.  The  regulative  principles  being 
essential  parts  of  man's  nature,  we  find  all  human  beings  under 
their  influence.  Being  irresistible,  no  man  can  deliver  himself 
from  tliem.  They  are  ever  operating  spontaneously,  and  that 
whether  men  do  or  do  not  acknowledge  them  reflexly.  In  this 
respect  the  philosopher  and  the  peasant,  the  dogmatist  and  the 
sceptic  are  as  one.  The  metaphysician  who  has  detected  and 
formalized  the  rule,  is  in  no  better  position  tlian  the  mcclianic 
who  acts  on  the  principle  without  knowing  that  tlicre  is  a  prin- 
ciple. The  sceptic  who  denies  the  principle  is  notwithstanding 
convinced  of  the  individual  truth  when  it  is  pressed  upon  his 
notice,  quite  as  implicitly  as  the  philosopher  who  is  strenuously 
defending  it. 
4 


50  CHABACTEBS  OF  OUB  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

2.  These  self-evident  truths  cannot  be  set  aside  by  any  otlier 
truth,  real  or  pretended.  Tlicy  could  be  overthrown  only  by  some 
truth  higher  in  itself,  or  carrying  with  it  greater  weight.  But  there 
is  no  such  truth,  there  can  be  no  such  truth.  There  are  indeed 
coordinate  principles, — all  self-evident  trutlis  are  in  respect  of 
veracity  of  equal  rank, — but  not  even  on  tlie  supposition  tliat  the 
one  contradicts  the  other,  could  we  set  aside  either.  The  result 
in  which  such  a  contradiction  should  land  us,  would  not  be  an 
arbitrary  selection  of  one  or  other,  but  absolute  scepticism,  always 
along  with  implicit  spontaneous  faith  in  both.  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  show  that  we  arc  not  landed  in  any  such  lamentable  issue, 
and  that  all  attempts  to  prove  that  intuitive  truths  contradict  each 
other  have  lamentably  failed. 

It  follows  that  when  an  apparent  contradiction  arises  between 
what  seems  a  self-evident  truth  and  any  other  supposed  truth,  we 
are  to  examine  the  evidence  which  we  have  for  both.  It  is  thus 
that  the  mathematician  acts  when  his  demonstrations  seem  to  be 
contradictory.  He  does  not  allow  himself  to  imagine  that  truth 
can  be  inconsistent ;  he  goes  over  the  processes  to  find  what 
error  he  has  himself  committed.  If  one  fundamental  principle 
seems  to  be  inconsistent  with  another  fundamental  jirinciple,  we 
are  to  examine  whether  both  are  certainly  primary,  and  can  be 
shown  to  be  so  by  the  proper  tests,  and  in  particular  whether  they 
have  been  accurately  generalized  and  expressed.  In  all  such  cases 
it  will  be  found  either  that  one  at  least  of  the  principles  is  not 
intuitively  certain — indeed  neither  of  them  may  be  so  ;  or,  as  is 
more  common,  we  may  not  have  properly  stated  the  primitive 
principle,  and  the  seeming  inconsistency  lies  not  in  tlie  principles 
themselves,  but  in  our  expression  of  them. 

Or  again,  the  apparent  contradiction  may  lie  between  a  primi- 
tive principle  and  a  derivative  one.  In  such  a  case  it  is  certain 
that  if  what  seems  a  primitive  principle  be  truly  so,  and  if  we 
have  put  it  in  the  proper  form,  it  can  never  be  displaced  or  over- 
thrown by  any  secondary  one.  For  if  we  follow  that  derivative 
principle  to  its  foundation,  we  shall  find  that  it  cannot  be  resting 
on  any  truth  more  authoritative  than  the  fundamental  one  which 
it  is  now  being  employed  to  undermine,  while  in  the  derivation  of 


BOOK  II.]        MABKS  AND  PECULIARITIES.  .    51.. 

it,  a  number  of  doubtful  elements  may  have  entered  whicli  must 
render  it  by  more  or  fewer  degrees  less  certain  than  the  intuitive 
truth  against  which  it  is  set.  In  all  such  cases  we  must  examine 
the  supposed  first  principle,  to  see  that  it  is  a  first  principle,  and 
that  it  is  properly  inducted,  and  review  the  derivative  princijjle  in 
order  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  evidence  by  which  it  is  sup- 
ported. By  such  a  sifting  process  the  seeming  contradiction  will 
in  all  probability  disappear ;  but  if  it  still  continue,  we  are  of 
course  shut  up  to  the  alternative  of  adhering  to  the  fundamental 
truth,  and  laying  aside  the  derivative  one  as  being  inferior  in 
authority  and  certainty. 


52  CUAEACTEllS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i, 


CHAPTER   II. 

METHOD    OF  EMPLOYING  INTUITIVE  I'BINCIPLES. 
SECT.  I.— THE  SPONTANEOUS  AND  REFLEX  USE  OF  INTUITIVE  PRINCIPLES. 

From  the  account  which  has  been  given  of  the  Intuitions,  it 
appears  that  they  may  operate — indeed  they  are  ever  operating 
— of  their  own  accord,  and  without  our  prompting  them  into 
exercise  by  any  voluntary  act ;  and  it  appears,  too,  that  we  may 
generalize  the  individual  actings,  discover  the  rule  of  their  opera- 
tion, and  then  proceed  to  use  them  in  deduction  and  in  specula- 
tion. The  former  of  these  may  be  called  the  Spontaneous  Action, 
and  the  latter  tlie  Reflex  Application  of  tlie  Intuitions.  In  their 
spontaneous  exercise  they  are  regulating  principles,  regulating 
thought  and  belief,  and  operating  whether  we  observe  tliem  or  no. 
But  in  this  operation  our  convictions  all  relate  to  singulars,  and  so 
cannot  be  directly  used  in  philosophic  speculation.  In  order  to 
their  scientific  application,  there  is  need  of  careful  reflex  observa- 
tion and  generalization.  In  order  to  their  spontaneous  perception 
it  is  not  requisite  that  their  nature  should  be  determined,  they  act 
best  when  we  look  simply  at  tlie  object  and  take  no  introspection 
of  them.  But  to  justify  the  application  of  them  in  philosophy,  it 
is  essential  that  their  exact  nature,  and  precise  law  and  rule,  be 
carefully  determined.  It  is  all-important,  in  treating  of  our  intui- 
tions, to  draw  sucli  a  distinction,  for  much  that  may  be  affirmed 
of  them  under  one  of  these  aspects  cannot  be  affirmed  of  them  in 
the  otlier.' 

'"La  raison  se  developpe  de  deux  manieres,  spontaneite  et  reflexion." — "La  raison 
debute  par  une  synthesc;  riche  et  feconde,  mais  obscure :  vient  aprfes  I'analyse  qui 
eclaircit  tout  en  divisant  tout,  et  qui  aspire  elle-meme  a  une  synthese  superieure,  aussi 
comprehensive  que  la  premiere  et  plus  lumineuse.     La  spontan6it6  donne  la  verite ;   la 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  53 

1.  The  spontaneous  must  always  precede  the  reflex  form.  We 
have  already  noticed  the  circumstance  that  in  tlie  case  of  some  of 
them  the  spontaneous  perception  begins  with  the  earliest  exercise 
of  the  intelligence,  while  in  the  case  of  others,  though  a  prepara- 
tion is  made  for  them  from  the  beginning — -just  as  all  the  organs 
of  the  animal  may  be  said  to  be  in  the  embryo — it  is  long  before 
they  come  out  in  open  manifestation,  and  in  unfavourable  circum- 
stances they  may  never  appear  in  a  fully  developed  form,  or  in 
vigorous  life.  But  at  whatever  time  they  appear  spontaneously, 
the  generalized  expression  of  them  must  always  be  later.  We  can- 
not generalize  them  till  we  have  observed  them,  and  we  cannot 
observe  them  till  tliey  are  in  exercise.  The  reflex  use  of  them  is 
a  scientific  process,  and  cannot  begin  in  the  individual  or  in  a 
nation,  till  the  scientific  spirit  has  been  engendered.  Even  in 
their  native  form,  some  of  them  appear  only  in  the  mature  man 
and  in  tlie  fully-developed  mind  ;  in  their  reflex  shape  they  arc 
found  only  in  individuals  and  in  ages  and  countries  addicted  to 
reflection  or  inward  observation.  Indeed,  as  the  discovery,  or  even 
the  comprehension,  of  the  reflex  law  implies  a  special  bending 
back  of  the  eye,  from  vrhich  most  men  shrink,  the  process  is  one 
which  the  great  mass  of  mankind  never  engage  in,  and  which  the 
majority  of  those  who  engage  in  it  never  follow,  except  for  the 
sustaining  of  some  favourite  dogma,  or  the  repelling  of  some 
profi"ered  objection.  It  must  be  late  in  the  history  of  inquiry  and 
speculation  before  we  can  expect  to  have  an  expression  of  the 
laws  of  the  intuitions  expounded  simply  for  its  scientific  value, 
or  as  a  body  of  philosophic  truth. 

2.  The  intuition,  in  its  reflex,  abstract,  or  general  form,  is  derived 
from,  and  is  best  tested  by,  the  concrete  spontaneous  conviction. 
In  order  to  the  formation  of  the  definition,  maxim,  or  axiom,  we 
nmst  have  objects  or  examples  before  us,  and  we  must  be  careful 
to  observe  them,  and  note  what  is  involved  in  them. 

It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  geometry  arose  out  of  mensuration. 
Men  began  by  measuring  fields  and  heights,  and  thence  proceeded 

reflexion  produit  la  science;  I'une  fournit  une  base  largo  et  solide  aux  dcveloppo- 
ments  de  Thumanit^ ;  I'autre  imprime  a  ces  d^veloppeinents  leur  forme  la  plus  par- 
faite."— "  L'erreur  vient  de  la  r61lex-on."  (Cousin,  Cours  de  Vllist.  Phil.  \U  s6rie,  t.  i. 
leg.  vi.  vii.) 


54  CHARACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [pakt  i. 

to  construct  a  scientific  mode  of  accomplishing  what  had  been 
done  by  practical  rules ;  and  I  suspect  that  the  enunciation  of 
axioms  and  some  of  the  more  elementary  demonstrations,  came  at 
a  later  date  than  practical  rules,  or  even  than  certain  of  the  more 
advanced  propositions.  We  find,  in  like  manner,  that  a  -syste- 
matized and  connected  Ethics,  proceeding  from  original  principles, 
and  going  on  to  applications,  came  later  in  the  history  of  moral 
philosophy  than  the  injunctions  of  parents,  or  the  moral  codes  of 
legislators  and  the  laws  of  religion.  There  was  reasoning,  and 
there  were  even  rules  of  reasoning,  before  a  regular  Logic  appeared. 
Metaphysics  have  arisen  out  of  the  contests  of  sects,  or  have  been 
interposed  as  a  breakwater  against  a  tide  of  scepticism. 

In  all  times  and  circumstances,  the  most  effectual  means  of 
testing  logical,  ethical,  and  metaphysical  principle,  is  by  the  appli- 
cation of  it  to  actual  cases,  which  should  be  as  numerous  and 
varied  as  possible.  It  is  when  appropriate  examples  are  before  it 
that  the  mind  is  able  to  appreciate  the  meaning  of  the  general 
fornmlaa.  It  is  only  when  it  has  considered  them  in  their  appli- 
cation to  a  number  of  diversified  instances  that  the  mind  is  in 
circumstances  to  pronounce  them  to  be  probably,  or  approximately, 
or  altogether  correct.'  Without  observational  testing  such  pro- 
cesses as  definition,  division,  arrangement,  and  deduction  may  have 
rather  a  tempting  and  misleading  influence.  A  power  of  dissection 
and  inference  can  do  as  little  in  metaphysical  as  in  physical  inves- 
tigation, tliat  is,  it  is  of  no  value  at  all,  or  may  be  positively  inju- 
rious unless  it  proceed  on  a  previous  collation  of  facts.  Minds  of 
great  logical  and  critical  discernment  are  apt  to  go  further  wrong 
than  others  wlio  are  no  philosophers  at  all,  by  seizing  on  some 
mutilated  or  imperfectly  expressed  principle,  and  carrying  it  out 

I  Kant  has  laid  down  a  very  different  maxim,  declaring  that  examples  only  injure  the 
understanding  in  respect  of  the  correctness  and  precision  of  the  apprehension.  Speaking 
of  examples:  "Dennwas  die  Richtigkeit  und  Precision  der  Verstandeseinsicht  betrifft, 
80  thun  sie  derselben  vielmelir  gemeiniglich  einigen  Abbruch,  weil  sie  nvir  selten  die 
Bedingung  der  Kegel  adaquat  erfilllen  (als  casus  in  terminis),  und  uberdies  diejenige 
Anstrengung  des  Verstandes  oftmals  schwiichen,  Regeln  im  Allgemeinen,  und  unab- 
bangig  von  den  besonderen  Umstilnden  der  Erfahrung,  nach  ihrer  Zulanglichkeit, 
einzusehen,  und  sie  daher  zuletzt  niebr  wie  Formeln,  als  Grundsatze,  zu  gebrauchen 
angewobnen"  {Ju-it.  d.  r.  V.  Trans.  Log.  p.  119;  Rosen).  This  shows  that  Kant  had  no 
correct  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the  general  rule  is  reached.  The  same  view  is  evidently 
taken  by  many  of  the  formal  logicians  of  our  day. 


•  * 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  55 

fearlessly,  according  to  the  rules  of  a  rigid  deduction.  Of  all  men, 
those  who  live  in  the  region  of  high  abstractions,  which  they  never 
bring  down  to  realities,  are  most  apt  to  go  astray  as  in  snow-drift ; 
and  when  they  do  wander,  they  go  faster  and  further  wrong  than 
other  men. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  abstraction,  or 
generalization,  is  not  got  from  an  outward  object  or  event  which 
may  fall  under  ocular  inspection  or  instrumental  experiment,  but 
from  the  operations  of  a  mental  law,  which  may  be  altogether 
missed  by  those  who  are  exclusively  engrossed  with  the  object  at 
which  the  mind  is  looking  when  the  regulative  principle  is  work- 
ing. Of  all  men,  the  ardent  sense-observer,  or  the  lively  picturer 
of  external  scenes,  is  the  most  inclined  to  shrink  from  reflex  in- 
spection, and  is  the  worst  fitted  to  propound  or  to  judge  of  abstract 
mental  principles. 

3.  The  expression  of  the  abstract  or  general  truth  is  more  or  less 
easy,  and  is  likely  to  be  more  or  less  correct,  according  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  objects  to  which  tlie  spontaneous  conviction  is 
directed.  It  is  evident  that  some  of  the  intuitive  principles  of  the 
mind  arc  more  difficult  to  detect  and  formalize  than  others.  Those 
which  arc  directed  to  sensible  objects,  and  simple  objects,  will  be 
found  out  more  easily,  and  at  an  earlier  date,  than  those  which 
look  to  more  complex  or  spiritual  objects.  Thus  the  intuitions 
regarding  space — seen  by  the  eye,  and  readily  pictured  in  the 
imagination — were  abstracted,  and  generalized  into  geometrical 
definitions  and  axioms,  at  an  early  stage  of  intellectual  culture.  It 
is  a  vastly  more  difficult  task  to  express  accurately,  and  in  their 
ultimate  form,  the  intuitive  convictions  regarding  such  objects  as 
substance,  and  quality,  and  the  laws  involved  in  thought  and 
moral  perception.  Still  the  war  of  contending  sects,  and  the 
assaults  of  the  sceptic,  and  the  insidious  underminings  of  the 
sophist,  would  compel  men  at  an  early  date,  to  evolve  some 
sort  of  logic,  and  we  have  the  nature  of  genera  and  species  and 
definition,  chalked  out  by  Socrates,  the  principle  of  contradiction 
employed  by  Plato,  and  the  formula  of  reasoning  determined,  at  least 
approximately,  by  Aristotle,  and,  in  a  looser  form,  even  in  India, 
move  than  two  thousand  years  ago.    The  practical  interest  collect' 


56  CUABAGTEIIS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 

ing  round  inoi-al  questions  would  also  lead  to  an  early  enunciation 
of  ethical  principle,  wliich,  however,  owing  to  the  innumcraljlc 
relations  involved  in  the  discharge  of  duty,  would  not,  at  an  early 
sta""C,  take  a  tliorouglily  fundamental  or  rigidly  exact  form.  The 
crude  nature  of  the  classification  embodied  in  the  cardinal  virtues, 
is  a  proof  of  the  difficulty  of  expressing  the  ultimate  laws  of 
morality,  or  the  supreme  rule  of  right  and  wrong.  A  similar 
complexity  presents  itself  in  all  inquiries  in  which  substance  and 
force  enter  as  elements,  and  hence,  while  attempts  have  been  made 
from  the  commencement  of  speculation  to  express  first  principles 
in  regard  to  fucIi  objects,  the  rule  announced  has  commonly  com- 
bined intuitive  and  experiential  elements,  has  been  able  to  serve 
only  a  provisional  purpose,  has  seldom  been  more  than  approxi- 
mately correct,  and  ever  requires  to  be  rectified  by  mucli  sub- 
sequent examination  and  comparison  with  concrete  cases. 

4.  In  their  spontaneous  action  the  intuitions  never  err,  properly 
speaking  ;  but  there  may  be  manifold  mistakes  lurking  in  their  re- 
flex form  and  application.  I  have  used  the  qualified  language  that 
^'operly  speaJcing  they  do  not  err  in  their  original  impulses  ;  for 
even  here  they  may  carry  error  with  them.  They  look  to  a  repre- 
sentation given  them,  and  this  representation  may  be  erroneous, 
and  error  will  appear  in  the  result.  The  mind  intuitively  de- 
clares that  on  a  real  quality  presenting  itself,  it  must  imply  a 
substance  ;  but  what  is  not  truly  a  quality  may  be  represented 
as  a  quality,  and  then  it  is  declared  that  this  quality  implies  a 
substance.  Thus  Sir  Isaac  Newton  and  Dr.  S.  Clarke  represented 
time  and  space  as  qualities  (whicli  I  regard  as  a  mistake),  and 
then  represented  reason  as  guaranteeing  that  these  qualities  im- 
plied a  substance  in  which  they  inhere,  which  is  God.  But  the 
error  in  such  cases  cannot  legitimately  be  charged  on  the  intui- 
tion, which  is  exercised  simply  in  regard  to  the  presentation  or 
representation  made  to  it. 

But  there  is  room  for  innumerable  errors  creeping  into  the 
abstract  or  general  enunciation,  and  the  scientific  application  of  it. 
For  vre  may  have  made  a  most  defective,  or  exaggerated,  or  totally 
inaccurate  abstraction  or  generalization  of  the  formula  out  of  the 
individual  exercises,  or  we  may  employ  it  in  cases  to  which  it  has 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  57 

no  legitimate  reference.  From  sucli  causes  as  these  have  sprung 
those  oversights,  exaggerations,  and  not  unfrequently  flagrant  and 
pernicious  errors,  which  have  appeared  in  every  form  of  metaphys- 
ical speculation.  This  is  a  topic  which  will  fall  to  be  resumed  in 
next  section. 

5.  The  tests  of  intuitive  convictions  admit  of  an  application  to 
the  abstract  and  general  principle,  only  so  far  as  the  abstraction 
and  generalization  have  been  properly  performed.  It  is  only  .as 
applied  to  singulars,  that  our  perceptions  can  be  regarded  as  intu- 
itive. The  tests  of  intuitions,  viz.,  self-evidence,  necessity,  and 
catholicity,  apply  directly  only  to  individual  convictions.  To  the 
formalized  expression  of  them,  the  tests  apply  only  mediately,  and 
on  the  supposition  and  condition  tliat  the  formulas  are  the  proper 
expression  of  the  spontaneous  perceptions. 

It  is  always  possible  that  the  abstraction  and  the  generalization 
may  not  have  been  correctly  executed.  In  some  cases,  tliis  is  no 
more  than  barely  possible.  Whenever  the  object  is  a  very  simple 
one,  presenting  itself  very  much  apart  from  all  other  circumstances, 
there  is  scarcely  the  possibility  of  error  creeping  in.  Hence  the 
assurance  which  the  mind  feels  in  regard  to  matliematical  axioms, 
and  the  propositions  founded  on  them  by  steps  every  one  of  which 
is  intuitive.  Even  in  regard  to  matliematics  there  may  be  doubts 
and  contests,  but  it  is  only  in  more  recondite  topics,  such  for  in- 
stance as  those  into  whicli  the  idea  of  infinity  ent(a'S.  But  in 
regard  to  intuitions  which  refer  to  objects  which  are  more  compli- 
cated, that  is,  which  are  mixed  up  with  divers  other  matters  in 
our  comprehension,  there  may  be  difficulties  in  exactly  seizing  and 
expressing  the  principle,  and  there  may  therefore  be  doubts  and 
disputes  as  to  whether  any  given  account  of  tliem  is  correct  and 
adequate.  It  is  selfevident  as  to  this  particular  quality,  that  it 
implies  a  substance,  but  there  is  much  obscurity  about  the  general 
relation  of  substance  and  quality.  The  mind  at  once  declares  of 
this  given  effect  that  it  must  have  a  cause,  but  there  may  be  doubts 
and  difficulties  as  to  the  proper  form  in  which  to  express  the  law 
of  causation.  Every  man  is  convinced  that  he  is  the  same  person 
to-day  as  he  was  yesterday,  but  how  few  have  liad  consciously 
before  tliem  the  general  principle  of  self  and  of  personality. 


5S  CUAIIACTEBS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 

SECT.  II.— SOURCES  OF  ERROR  IN  METAPHYSICAL  SPECULATION. 

All  proposed  metaphysical  principles  arc  attempted  expressions 
of  the  intuitions  in  the  foi-ni  of  a  general  law.  Now  error  may  at 
times  spring-  from  the  assumption  of  a  principle  which  has  no 
existence  whatever  in  the  human  mind.  I  am  persuaded  however 
that  the  errors  thus  originated  arc  comparatively  few,  and  arc 
seldom  followed  by  serious  consequences.  In  regard  to  the  assump- 
tion of  totally  imaginary  principles,  I  am  convinced  tliat  there 
have  been  fewer  mistakes  in  metaphysical  than  in  physical  science. 
As  the  intuitions  of  the  mind  are  working  in  every  man's  bosom,  it 
will  seldom  happen  that  the  speculator  can  set  out  with  a  principle 
which  has  no  existence  whatever ;  and  should  he  so  venture,  he 
would  certainly  meet  witli  little  response.  It  is  possible  also  for 
error  to  arise  from  a  chain  of  erroneous  deduction  from  principles 
which  arc  genuine  in  themselves  and  soundly  interpreted.  The 
mistakes  springing  from  this  c[uarter  are  likewise,  I  believe,  few 
and  trifling,  the  more  so  that  those  who  draw  such  inferences  are 
generally  men  of  powerful  logical  mind,  and  not  likely  to  commit 
errors  in  reasoning ;  and  if  they  did,  those  who  have  ability  to 
follow  them  would  be  sure  to  detect  them.  By  far  the  most 
copious  source  of  aberration  in  philosophic  speculation  is  to  be 
found  in  the  imperfect,  or  exaggerated,  or  mutilated  expression  of 
principles  which  really  have  a  place  in  our  constitution.  In  such 
cases  the  presence  of  the  real  metal  gives  currency  to  the  dross 
which  is  mixed  with  it. 

In  regard  to  many  of  our  intuitions,  the  gathering  of  the  com- 
mon quality,  out  of  the  concrete  and  individual  manifestations,  is 
as  subtle  a  work  as  the  human  understanding  can  bo  engaged  in. 
This  arises  from  the  recondite,  the  complicated,  and  fugitive  nature 
of  the  mental  states,  from  which  they  must  be  drawn.  But  from 
tlio  very  commencement  of  speculation  and  the  breaking  out  of 
discussion,  attempts  have  been  made  to  give  a  body  and  a  form  to 
the  native  convictions.  It  is  seldom  tliat  the  account  is  altogether 
illusory  ;  most  commonly  there  is  a  basis  of  fact  to  set  off  the 
fiction.  But  the  principle  is  seen  and  represented  only  under  one 
aspect,  while  others  are  left  out  of  sight.     It  often  happens  that 


BOoiL  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  59 

he  whose  intuitions  are  the  strongest  and  the  liveliest  is  of  all  men 
the  least  qualified  to  examine  and  fjjeneralize  them,  and  should  he 
be  tempted  to  embody  them  in  pro}30sitions,  they  will  be  sure  to 
take  distorted,  perhaps  erroneous  forms.  In  all  departments  of 
speculation,  metaphysical,  ethical,  and  theological,  we  meet  with 
persons  whose  faith  is  strong,  whose  sentiments  are  fervent,  and 
whoso  very  reason  is  far-seeing,  but  whose  creed — that  is,  formal- 
ized doctrine — is  extravagant,  or  even  perilously  wrong.  In  other 
cases  the  conviction,  genuine  in  itself,  is  put  forth  in  a  mutilated 
shape  by  prejudiced  men  to  support  a  favourite  doctrine,  or  by 
party  men  to  get  rid  of  a  formidable  objection. 

The  human  mind  is  impelled  by  an  intellectual  craving,  and  by 
the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  placed,  to  be  ever  generalizing, 
and  this  in  respect  both  of  material  and  mental  phenomena.  But 
its  earliest  classes  and  systems,  even  those  of  them  made  for 
scientific  purposes,  are  commonly  of  a  very  crude  character.  Still, 
even  such  generalizations,  though  at  the  best  mere  approximations, 
at  times  serve  valuable  ends  in  the  absence  of  better  and  until 
better  appear.  Such  laws  as  these  have  been  laid  down  :  "  Nature 
abhors  a  vacuum  ;"  "  Some  bodies  are  naturally  light,  and  others 
lieavy  ;"  "  Combustible  bodies  are  chemically  composed  of  a  base 
with  phlogiston  combined  with  it ;"  "  The  organs  of  the  flower  are 
transformed  leaves."  Tliese  were  the  best  general  statements  which 
scientific  inquirers  could  give  at  the  time  of  their  observations. 
They  served  to  express,  if  not  to  explain,  certain  phenomena. 
Nature's  horror  of  a  vacuum  showed  how  water  rose  in  a  pump. 
The  doctrine  of  the  natural  heaviness  and  lightness  of  bodies 
seemed  to  explain  how  stones  fell  to  the  earth  while  smoke  rose 
in  the  atmosphere.  The  burning  of  brimstone  was  thought  to  be 
satisfactorily  accounted  for  when  it  was  said  that  brimstone,  being 
composed  of  sulphurous  acid  and  phlogiston,  the  combustion  con- 
sisted in  giving  out  phlogiston.  The  undoubted  correspondence 
between  the  leaf  and  the  stamen  suggested  the  idea  tliat  tlie  leaf 
had  been  transformed  into  a  stamen.  But  modern  science,  advanc- 
ing in  the  inductive  method,  has  shown  that  none  of  these  were 
correct  expressions  of  the  real  laws  of  nature.  It  cannot  be  because 
of  its  aversion  to  a  vacuum  that  water  rises  in  a  pump,  for  if  the 


60  CllAnACTEPiS   OF  OUll  INTUITIONS.     [PAr/r  i. 

Taeuum  extends  higlicr  than  a  certain  number  of  feet  tlie  water 
allows  it  to  exist  in  its  emptiness.  Smoke  rises  from  the  earth, 
not  because  of  its  natural  levity,  but  because  it  is  buoyed  up  by 
the  atmosphere.  It  unfortunately  happens  that  lead,  after  it  is 
burned,— that  is,  after  it  has  given  oif,  according  to  the  pldogiston 
th.corv,  one  of  its  ingredients, — is  found  to  be  heavier  than  before. 
Stamens  and  pistils  have  never  been  leaves,  they  arc  merely  after 
the  same  model. 

These  are  examples  from  physical  science.  Metaphysical  science, 
from  the  subtle  and  intertwined  nature  of  the  phenomena,  can 
furnish  far  more  numerous  instances.  In  mental  philosophy  the 
cencral  statcmcnt^^  have  commonly  a  genuine  fact,  but  mixed  with 
this  there  is  often  an  alloy.  The  error  may  not  influence  the 
spontaneous  action  of  the  primitive  principle,  but  it  may  tell 
disastrously  or  ludicrously  in  tlie  reflex  application.  It  may  not 
even  exercise  any  prejudicial  influence  in  certain  departments  of 
investigation,  but  in  other  walks  it  may  work  endless  confusion, 
or  land  in  consequences  fitted  to  sap  the  very  foundations  of 
morality  and  religion.  Take  the  distinction  drawn,  in  some  form, 
by  most  civilized  languages  between  the  head  and  the  heart.  The 
distinction  embodies  a  great  truth,  and  when  used  in  conversation 
or  popular  discourse  it  can  conduct  to  no  evil.  But  it  cannot  be 
carried  out  psychologically.  For  in  each  a  number  of  very  dis- 
tinct faculties  are  included.  Under  the  phrase  "  heart,"  in  particular, 
are  covered  powers  with  wide  diversities  of  function,  such  as  the 
conscience,  the  emotions,  and  the  will.  The  question  agitated  in 
this  century,  whether  religion  be  an  affair  of  the  head  or  the  heart, 
has  come  to  be  a  hopelessly  perplexed  one,  because  the  offices  of 
the  powers  embraced  under  each  are  diverse,  and  run  into  each 
other  ;  and  certain  of  the  positions  taken  up  are,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  perilous  :  as  when  it  is  said  that  religion  resides  exclusively 
in  the  heart,  and  persons  understand  that  it  is  a  matter  of  mere 
emotion,  omitting  understanding,  will,  and  conscience,  which  litive 
equally  a  part  to  play.  Of  the  same  description  is  the  distinction 
between  the  reason  and  the  understanding.  It  points  to  a  reality 
There  is  a  distinction  between  reason  in  its  primary  and  reason  in 
its  secondary  or  logical  exercises,  and  the  mind  can  rise,  always 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  61 

however  by  a  process  in  which  the  logical  understanding  is  em- 
ployed, to  the  discovery  of  universal  and  necessary  truth.  But 
each  of  the  divisions,  the  reason  and  the  understanding,  comprises 
powers  which  run  into  the  other.  This  distinction  is  at  the  best 
confusing,'  and  it  is  often  so  stated  as  to  imply  that  the  reason, 
without  the  use  of  the  understanding  processes  of  abstraction  and 
generalization,  can  rise  to  the  contemplation  of  the  true,  tlie  beau- 
tiful, and  the  good. 

It  can  be  shown  that  some  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  and 
Kepler  in  modern  times,  had  glimpses  of  a  law  of  universal  gravi- 
tation before  the  days  of  Newton,  but  none  of  the  earlier  inves- 
tigators liad  been  able  to  determine  its  exact  nature  and  rule. 
Suppose  that  while  science  was  at  this  stage  some  person  had 
af&rmcd  that  there  was  a  power  of  attraction  among  all  bodies, 
varying  inTcrsely,  not  according  to  the  square  of  the  distance,  but 
according  to  the  distance :  he  would  no  doubt  have  had  a  truth, 
and  a  very  important  one  ;  but  the  law  thus  stated,  while  explain- 
ing in  a  general  way  a  number  of  the  phenomena,  would,  wlien 
deductions  were  drawn  from  it,  have  issued  in  ever  accumulating 
errors,  and  this  not  because  no  such  law  existed,  but  because  its 
rule  had  been  improperly  apprehended  and  enunciated.  Almost 
all  metaphysical  errors  spring  from  this  source,  from  the  improper 
formalization  of  principles  which  are  real  laws  of  our  constitution. 
When  presented  in  this  mutilated  shape,  even  truth  may  lead  to 
hideous  consequences.  It  will  be  shown  as  we  advance  that 
there  is  an  intuitive  law  of  cause  and  effect,  but  this  law  has 
not  always  been  correctly  enunciated.  Suppose  it  be  put  in  this 
form,  that  "  everything  must  have  a  cause,"  it  will  issue  logically 
and  necessarily  in  the  result  that  the  Intelligent  Cause  of  this 
world  must  Himself  have  had  a  cause.  This  consequence  can 
at  once  be  avoided  by  a  proper  enunciation  of  the  law  of 
causation. 

We  may  now  see  how  it  is  that  metaphysicians,  when  they  go 
wrong,  go  further  wrong  tlian  others.  This  proceeds  from  the 
fundamental  nature  of  metaphysical  principles :  every  error  here, 
like  a  niistake  in  taking  down   the  datum  of  an   arithmetical  or 

>  This  distinction  is  examined,  Part  in.  Book  i.  Cliap.  ii.  sect.  vi.  Supplciwntainj. 


Cr2  CIIABACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

matliomatical  question,  must  issue  in  fearfully  magnified  error  in 
the  results  reaclietl.  This  weakness  in  tlie  foundation  must  make 
the  structure  insecure  to  its  topmost  pinnacle.  The  tainting  of  the 
fouiifaiu  ^vill  go  witli  the  stream  in  all  its  lengtli.  Suppose  that 
we  set  out  in  ethical  discussion  with  tlie  assumption  that  virtue  is 
just  a  far-sighted  love  of  pleasure,  or  in  theology  with  the  dogma 
that  justice  is  a  modification  of  benevolence,  it  will  turn  out  that 
these  principles  (which  I  believe  to  be  wrong)  will  affect  the  whole 
superstructure  of  speculation,  and  lead  those  who  adopt  them  to 
take  very  inadequate  views  of  sin  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
justice  of  God  on  the  other.  It  should  be  added  that  an  error  in 
the  starting  principle  comes  out  in  more  exaggerated  errors  in  the 
issue  in  very  proportion  to  the  rigid  consecutiveness  of  the  deduc- 
tion and  the  extent  to  which  it  is  carried.  A  mistake  in  the  first 
steps  of  an  arithmetical  question  may  be  lessened  by  some  coun- 
terbalancing blunder  in  the  further  calculations.  It  has  often  hap- 
pened that  philosophers  have  shrunk  from  following  out  their 
principles  to  their  consequences.  Locke  in  particular  has  often 
been  saved  from  extreme  opinions  to  which  his  theoxy  led,  but 
from  which  his  sagacity  and  honesty  recoiled,  by  falling  into 
inconsequences  and  inconsistencies.  Powerful  logical  minds,  like 
Spinoza  and  Hegel,  have,  on  the  other  hand,  boldly  avowed  the 
most  extravagant  doctrines,  as  being  tlie  legitimate  result  of  their 
gratuitous  assumptions. 

There  is  another  circumstance  to  be  taken  into  account  by  tliose 
who  would  unfold  the  theory  of  the  metapliysician's  extrava- 
gancies ;  he  is  not  restrained  as  the  pliysical  investigator  is  by 
stubliorn  facts,  nor  checked  as  the  commercial  man  is  by  stern 
realities,  which  he  dare  not  despise.  He  has  only  to  mount  into 
a  region  of  pure  (or  rather,  I  should  say,  cloudy)  speculation,  to 
find  himself  in  circumstances  to  cleave  his  way  without  meeting 
with  any  felt  barrier.  At  the  same  time  one  might  have  reason- 
ably expected,  that  when  such  speculators  as  Spinoza,  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel,  felt  themselves  rushing  headlong  against  all 
acknowledged  truth,  they  would  have  suspected  that  there  was 
something  wrong  in  their  assumptions,  or  in  their  method.  When- 
ever the  results  reached  contradict  the  established   doctrines  of 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION,  63 

physical  science,  whenever  they  lead  to  the  denial  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  good  and  evil,  or  the  personality  of  the  soul,  or  of 
the  existence,  the  personality,  and  continual  providence  of  God,  it 
is  time  to  review  the  process  by  which  they  have  been  gained,  for 
they  are  running  counter  to  truths  which  have  too  deep  a  founda- 
tion to  be  moved  by  doubtful  speculations.  The  remark  of  Bacon 
as  to  physical,  may  be  applied  to  metaphysical  speculation,  that 
doctrine  is  to  be  tried  (not  valued,  however)  by  fruits :  "  Of  all 
signs  there  is  none  more  certain  or  worthy  than  that  of  the  fruits 
produced  ;  for  the  fruits  and  effects  are  sureties  and  vouchers,  as  it 
were,  for  philosophy."  "  In  the  same  manner  as  we  are  cautioned 
by  religion  to  show  our  faith  by  our  works,  we  may  freely  apply 
the  principle  to  philosophy,  and  judge  of  it  by  its  works,  account- 
ing that  to  be  futile  which  is  unproductive,  and  still  more,  if  in- 
stead of  grapes  and  olives  it  yield  but  the  thistles  and  thorns  of 
dispute  and  contention." 

SECT.   Ill— CONDITIONS  OF  THE  LEGITIMACY  OP  THE  APPEAL  TO 
INTUITIVE   PRINCIPLES. 

There  is  .scarcely  occasion  to  lay  down  any  rules  as  to  the  spon- 
taneous use  of  the  regulative  principles  of  the  mind.  It  is  of  their 
nature  to  operate,  and,  like  the  physiological  processes  of  seeing 
and  breathing,  they  act  all  the  better  when  no  notice  is  taken  of 
them.  All  that  is  necessary  to  call  them  forth  is  to  present  the 
appropriate  objects, — in  mathematics,  for  example,  to  present 
geometrical  figures  and  quantities,  and  in  moral  subjects  to  pre- 
sent models  and  ideals  of  excellence.  Thus  are  they  evoked  in 
the  first  instance,  and  tlius  are  our  intellectual  and  moral  intui- 
tions refined,  elevated,  and  strcngtliencd.  Any  other  rules  fitted 
to  promote  their  right  action  are  of  a  moral,  rather  than  a  theoret- 
ical character.  If  the  motive  power  of  the  mind  be  riglit,  if  the 
man  be  impelled  by  a  love  of  truth,  and  swayed  by  a  spirit  of 
candour,  then  the  regulative  principles,  if  occupied  about  the 
proper  objects,  will  of  themselves  perform  their  proper  function. 
There  is  trutli  in  the  common  observation,  tliat  a  mind  sophisti- 
cated by  logic  and   confused  by  metapliysics  will  often   fall   into 


64  CHARACTEBS'OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [parti. 

errors,  from  wliicli  otlicrs  who  follow  only  good  sense  and  good 
feeling  arc  happily  delivered. 

But  if  persons  wish  at  any  time  to  review  their  opinions,  or 
answer  objections,  or  convince  others  by  argument,  tlicy  must 
employ  principles  of  some  kind,  and  these,  in  the  last  resort,  must 
conduct  to  first  principles,  I  suppose  that  if  man's  moral  nature 
had  been  pure,  he  would  never  have  fallen  into  error  ;  there  would 
liavc  been  no  difference  among  mankind  in  regard  to  questions  of 
vital  moment,  and  controversy  would  have  been  unknown.  In 
such  a  happy  condition,  I  believe  that  first  principles  would  have 
been  contemplated  simply  as  a  matter  of  intellectual  curiosity,  and 
as  illustrative  of  the  Divine  wisdom.  It  is  not  necessary  to  prove 
that  man  is  not  placed  in  such  a  blessed  state  of  things.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  find  three  men  meet  .together  whose  opinions 
are  at  one,  even  on  essential  points  ;  to  err  is  an  inherent  weak- 
ness of  humanity,  and  some  have  fallen  into  most  pernicious 
mistakes.  Every  man  needs,  in  consequence,  to  examine  the 
appreliensions  he  has  formed,  and  the  convictions  which  he  has 
been  led  to  entertain  ;  he  has  to  defend  what  he  believes  to  be 
truth  when  it  is  assailed,  and  he  has,  in  a  spirit  of  love,  to  en- 
deavour to  convince  others  of  their  errors  when  these  relate  to 
matters  of  great  moment  for  this  life  or  the  life  to  come.  In  this 
world  of  ours,  the  review  of  impressions  and  opinions,  and  discus- 
sion, are  matters  of  absolute  necessity :  but  this  implies  the  use 
of  proofs,  premisses,  tests  ;  and  if  we  pursue  these  sufficiently  far 
(as  we  must  at  times  be  constrained  to  do),  we  go  beyond  deriva- 
tive to  original  principles.  But  are  we  at  liberty  to  call  in  a 
supposed  fundamental  principle  when  it  suits  us,  or  use  it  in  the 
form  that  pleases  us,  to  justify  an  opinion  to  which  we  are 
determined  to  adhere  at  all  hazards,  or  to  crush  a  troublesome 
opponent  ?  As,  there  arc  logical  rules  to  guard  against  abuse  in 
derivative  argument,  so  there  may  also  be  logical  rules  laid  down 
to  restrain  the  appeal  to  assumable  premisses. 

1.  Those  who  appeal  to  first  truths  must  be  prepared  to  show 
tliat  they  are  first  truths.  In  most  investigations  it  is  not  neces- 
sary ever  to  be  going  down  to  the  foundation.  In  ordinary  physical 
inquiry,  for  example,  we  may  assume  such  laws  as  gravitation  and 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  65 

chemical  affinity,  without  being  required  to  prove  them  once  and 
again.  But  in  certain  discussions,  theological  and  philosophical, 
more  especially  when  the  controversy  is  with  the  doubter  or  the 
sceptic,  it  may  be  needful  to  rest  our  first  stones  on  the  founda- 
tion ;  in  all  such  cases  we  must  be  sure  that  we  have  gone  down  to 
the  rock.  We  must  hold  ourselves  ready  to  prove,  not  indeed  the 
truth  of  the  first  principle — for  this  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of 
things — but  that  it  is  a  first  principle.  We  are  required  to  show 
that  it  is  self-evident ;  and  if  tliis  be  denied,  we  may  show  that 
we  are  constrained  to  believe  it,  and  cannot  be  made  to  judge  or 
decide  the  contradictory  of  it  to  be  true  ;  and  we  may  confirm  all 
this  by  showing  that  all  men  adhere  to  it.  We  should  not  stop 
short  of  this  in  the  argument  which  we  construct  for  our  own  con- 
viction ;  an  opponent  has  a  right  to  insist  on  this  in  arguing  with 
us  on  questions  which  go  down  to  the  bottom  ;  and  we  are  entitled, 
in  arguing  with  one  who  makes  any  appeal  to  primary  principles, 
to  demand  of  him  to  prove  that  what  he  is  calling  to  be  in  fact  a 
self-evident  and  necessary  conviction. 

2.  Those  who  employ  intuitive  principles  in  demonstration, 
speculation,  or  discussion  of  any  kind,  must  see  that  they  accu- 
rately express  them.  This  is  done  in  the  science  of  geometry, 
which  owes  much  of  its  certainty,  and  the  satisfaction  which  the 
mind  feels  in  contemplating  its  truths,  to  the  circumstance  that  it 
begins  with  announcing,  in  the  rigid  form  of  axioms,  or  postulates, 
all  that  it  assumes.  We  should  insist  that  the  same  be  done  in 
all  other  branches  which  employ  fii'st  principles.  The  canon  is, 
not  only  that  they  be  enunciated,  but  that  their  precise  rule  be 
enunciated.  It  often  happens  that  in  the  popular  expression  of 
material  facts,  a  law  is  put  in  a  form  which  gives  some  informa- 
tion, but  which  may  not  after  all  be  absolutely  correct.  People 
often  say  that  mountains  draw  the  clouds,  and  thus  foster  rain, 
and  this  gives  a  sort  of  statement  of  certain  facts  ;  but  the  true 
account  is  that  the  cold  mountain  condenses  the  moisture  in  the 
current  of  air  sweeping  over  it.  It  is  quite  right  to  say  that  the 
tides  are  produced  by  the  attraction  of  the  moon,  and  this  explains 
some  of  the  facts  ;  but  then  it  cannot  show  how  there  is  full  tide 
not  only  on  tlie  side  of  the  earth  next  the  moon,  but  on  the 
5 


^   66  CIIABACTEBS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

0])positc  side.  In  tlic  expression  of  the  phenomena  of  the  mind, 
there  arc  still  more  frequent  instances  of  statements  whicli  are 
only  approximate!}'  correct.  Thus  substance  has  been  explained 
as  that  Avhicli  subsists  of  itself,  or  needs  nothing  else  in  order  to 
its  existence.  This  account  contains  a  truth,  but  is  expressed 
in  too  unrestricted  a  form.  Spinoza,  proceeding  on  such  a  defini- 
tion, which  has  been  supplied  him  by  the  school  of  Descartes, 
goes  on  with  a  bristling  array  of  forms,  and  much  word-quib- 
bling, to  demonstrate  that  there  can  only  be  one  substance,  of 
which  all  other  things  are  the  attributes  or  modes.  We  are  at 
once  saved  from  this  pantheistic  consequence  by  putting  the 
proper  limitation  on  the  definition.  It  is  quite  true  that  in  all 
discussion,  theological  and  moral,  philosophic  principles  are  often 
appealed  to,  and  may  serve  a  proper  purpose,  even  when  not  very 
formally  or  accurately  expressed.  This  they  do  because  the  truth 
contained  in  the  principle  happens  to  be  applicable.  But  it  might 
have  happened  to  be  otherwise.  "  Every  event  has  a  cause  :"  this 
is  a  maxim  which  we  are  applying  in  our  every-day  reasonings 
and  observations.  But  has  it  no  limits  ?  or  is  causation  of  the 
same  character  in  regard  to  every  event?  In  particular,  does 
causation  reign  in  the  will,  as  it  reigns  in  the  material  universe  ? 
or  if  it  does,  is  causation  in  the  will  the  same  in  kind  as  causation 
in  external  nature,  or  as  causation  in  the  intelligence  ?  He  who 
uses  the  principle  of  causation  indiscriminately,  may,  before  he  is 
aware,  land  himself  in  the  conclusion  that  man  is  as  much  the 
slave  of  circumstances  as  every  spoke  in  the  wheel,  or  as  every 
link  in  a  chain,  which  a  strong  force  is  dragging  along.  We  can 
save  ourselves  from  such  consequences  only  l^y  limiting,  modify- 
ing, or  explaining  the  doctrine  of  causation.  We  have  already 
seen  that  our  intuition  regarding  causality  may  be  so  stated  as  to 
land  us  in  an  infinite  series  of  causes  ;  we  now  see  that  it  may 
be  so  enounced  as  to  undermine  the  great  moral  doctrine  of  the 
essential  freedom  of  the  will.  We  perceive  how  important  it  must 
be  to  have  the  nature  and  the  precise  range  of  the  law  clearly  and 
definitely  settled. 

The  two  rules  now  laid  down  may  seem  to  some  to  be  very  hard 
ones  ;    but  they  are  very  necessary  ones  to  arrest  those  confused 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  67 

and  confusing  controversies  whicli  abound  to  sucli  an  extent  in 
philosopliy,  in  theology,  and  in  other  departments  of  investigation 
as  well.  It  is  always  to  be  allowed,  indeed,  that  our  inquiries 
on  most  subjects  may  be  conducted  and  terminated  satisfactorily 
without  our  being  required  to  go  down  to  metaphysical  principles. 
The  farmer,  the  merchant,  the  politician,  and  even  the  physical 
investigator  in  most  of  his  walks,  may  come  to  the  right  conclu- 
sion in  regard  to  the  topics  which  they  wish  to  settle,  vfithout  its 
being  necessary  for  them  to  determine  the  nature  of  mathematical 
axioms  or  the  law  of  cause  and  effect ;  on  which,  notwithstanding, 
some  of  these  calculations  regarding  the  seasons  or  the  tides  or  the 
movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  the  probable  actings  of  men, 
may  after  all  depend — only,  however,  in  the  sense  of  a  deep  founda- 
tion which  it  is  not  necessary  for  these  parties  to  examine.  But  if 
any  one  will  enter  on  speculations  involving  radical  truth,  he  must 
be  prepared  to  submit  to  the  conditions  on  whicli  they  can  be  prop- 
erly conducted.  No  man  is  bound  to  be  a  metaphysician  unless 
he  chooses ;  but  if  he  insist  on  becoming  one,  he  must  attend  to 
the  regulations  of  the  office  which  he  takes  on  himself.  Every 
man  is  not  under  a  moral  obligation  to  throw  aside  other  useful 
pursuits,  and  devote  himself  to  answering  such  speculations  as  those 
of  Spinoza,  Berkeley,  Hume,  Fichte,  or  Hegel ;  but  if  he  ventures 
into  the  arena,  he  must  conform  to  its  rules.  Every  friend  of 
religion  is  not  obliged  to  wjrite  a  philosophic  defence  of  it,  and  some 
who  have  ventured  upon  such  a  work  might  have  been  more  profit- 
ably employed  in  a  less  ambitious  undertaking,  as  in  defending 
some  of  the  outworks  of  religion,  or  illustrating  its  power  by  their 
lives  ;  but  those  who  claim  to  be  philosophers  must  comport  them- 
selves as  philosophers.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  multitudes  dabble 
in  metaphysics  who  have  no  capacity  for  grappling  with  its  subtle 
truths ;  and  the  only  effective  mode  of  curbing  this  incompetency 
and  quackery,  is  by  insisting  on  all  those  who  would  enter  the 
trade  undergoing  some  sort  of  scientific  apprenticeship.  Nor  arc 
these  restrictions  the  less  necessary  from  the  circumstance  that  not 
a  few  of  those  who  profess  the  greatest  aversion  to  metaphysics 
are  all  the  while  deep  in  metaphysics  without  knowing  it,  and 
certainly  without  being   prepared  to  avow  it,  and  it  is   needful  to 


68  CUABACTEBS   OF  OUB  INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

lay  an  arrest  on  such  by  sliowing  what  the  science  is,  and  compel- 
ling tliem  if  they  enter  the  country  to  conform  to  its  laws. 

There  arc  persons  who  are  constrained  by  the  circumstances  in 
which  they  arc  placed,  or  by  wliat  tlicy  believe  to  be  the  voice  of 
duty,  to  discuss  fundamental  questions.  There  are  persons,  even 
in  the  lowest  walks  of  life,  troubled,  owing  to  a  peculiar  intel- 
lectual temperament  (commonly  not  of  a  very  healthy  character), 
with  speculative  doubts,  which  are  only  to  be  removed  by  specu- 
lative arguments ;  but,  if  convinced,  it  must  surely  l)e  by  argu- 
ments built  on  a  sure  foundation.  Some  are  placed  in  a  position 
in  which  they  are  assailed  by  the  infidel,  and  feel  that  they  must 
meet  him  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  religion.  Some,  as  knowing 
that  they  possess  peculiar  gifts,  feel  themselves  called  on  to  defend 
the  very  citadel  of  morals  or  of  religion,  or  to  rear  a  fabric  of  truth 
compacted  from  the  very  base.  But  if  these  men  are  not  to  waste 
their  strength  in  a  war  of  subtleties,  they  must  be  careful  liow 
tliey  begin  to  build,  lest  what  they  rear  turn  out  to  be  a  crazy  and 
unstable  fabric,  and  a  source  of  weakness  rather  than  of  strength. 
Paying  attention  to  certain  restrictions  and  precautions  themselves, 
they  will  be  in  a  position  to  insist  on  wild  speculators,  or  the 
sceptics  whom  they  oppose,  conforming  themselves  to  the  canons 
of  the  logic  of  metaphysical  speculation. 

Tliese  then  I  reckon  as  tlie  conditions  of  all  argument  which 
appeals  formally  to  primary  truth,  to  necessary  conviction,  or 
common  sense.  Persons  not  pretending  to  be  philosophers,  and 
discussing  none  of  tliose  topics  whicli  philosophers  alone  can  dis- 
cuss, may  claim  the  privilege,  'when  a  sceptical  objection  comes 
in  their  way,  or  an  altogether  unbelievable  dogma  is  asserted,  of 
rejecting  it  at  once,  on  the  ground  of  spontaneous  conviction, 
and  troubling  themselves  no  more  about  it.  They  must  take  care, 
however,  in  all  such  cases,  tliat  what  they  suppose  to  be  a  native 
conviction  be  not  a  mere  prepossession  of  education,  or  prejudice 
of  temper  ;  and  if  there  be  ground  for  doubt,  there  is  no  help  for  it 
but  in  an  appeal  to  the  tests  of  intuitions,  and  the  canons  of  their 
legitimate  use.  And  as  to  those  who  profess  to  proceed  philosoph- 
ically, it  is  incumbent  on  them  that  they  prove  that  what  they 
assume  is   an    original    conviction,  and    that    they   generalize   the 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  6$ 

spontaneous  exercises,  and  express  them  in  rigid  formulae.  But 
wlien  it  is  thus  conducted,  tlie  argument  from  intuition  or  common 
sense  is  not  an  argumentum  ad  populum,  and  least  of  all  an 
argument  addressed  to  vulgar  prejudice.  It  presupposes  a  rigid 
scientific  process,  and  should  not  be  attempted  by  any  except 
those  who  possess  the  requisite  retrospective  powers  of  observa- 
tion, and  have  disciplined  themselves  to  the  rules  of  the  logic  of 
first  principles.  "When  conformed  to  the  right  conditions,  it  is  an 
argument  strictly  scientific,  eminently  satisfactory  within  its  proper 
domain,  and  is  in  an  especial  sense  the  philosophical  argument. 

Such  restrictions  as  these  would,  I  know  full  well,  lay  an  arrest 
at  once  on  more  than  one-half  of  the  metaphysics  of  this  age,  and 
of  every  age.  This  would  be  felt  to  be  a  discouragement  by  certain 
eager  youths,  full  of  expectations  of  the  results  to  be  reached  by 
philosophic  speculation,  and  by  certain  older,  but  not  wiser  men, 
who  have  mapped  out  the  whole  intellectual  globe,  and  would  feel 
troubled  at  the  idea  of  their  distribution  being  disturbed  ;  but  in 
the  end  there  would  be  no  loss,  for  the  part  remaining  after  the 
refining  process  would  be  of  vastly  more  worth,  and  would  soon  be 
acknowledged  to  be  so. 

When  speculative  philosophy  is  pursued  in  the  usual  unrestrained 
manner,  the  results  reached  are  of  the  most  unsatisfactory  character, 
and  at  times  are  felt  to  be  so.  How  often  do  ardent  youths  rush 
into  the  country  opened  to  them  as  keenly  as  the  adventurers  in 
the  sixteenth  century  set  out  in  search  of  El  Dorado,  and  after 
spending  years,  and  wasting  the  strength  of  manhood,  they  come 
back  with  a  sense  of  emptiness  and  a  feeling  of  disappointment ! 
Even  those  who  refuse  to  abandon  the  hope,  and  who  cling  most 
resolutely  to  the  idea  that  they  have  discovered  genuine  gold,  are 
now  and  again  all  but  overwhelmed  with  a  feeling  of  prostration 
and  bitterness,  and  break  out,  as  the  Doctor  in  Faust, — 

"  I  feel  it,  I  have  heaped  upon  my  brain 
The  gathered  treasure  of  man's  thought  in  vain." 

In  such  there  is  a  weariness,  an  aching,  an  ennui  of  the  head, 
which  is  felt  to  bo  as  deep,  if  not  so  keen,  as  the  aching,  the  ennui 
of  the  heart   ever   is  ;    and  yet   tlicrc   may    coexist  with    this   a 


70  CHARACTEBS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

determination  to  continue  the  fruitless  pursuit.  Not  a  few  have 
had  a  confession  wrung  from  tliem  like  that  of  Jacobi  : — "  In  my 
younger  years  it  stood  thus  with  me  in  regard  to  philosophy  :  I 
seemed  to  myself  to  be  heir  to  innumerable  riches,  and  only  some 
unimportant  lawsuits  and  some  unmeaning  formalities  seemed  to 
hinder  me  from  taking  full  possession  of  my  inheritance.  The 
suits,  while  pending,  grew  to  be  important.  At  last  it  appeared 
that  I  had  inherited  nothing  but  lawsuits,  and  that  the  whole 
bequest  was  in  insolvent  hands." 

Happy  are  those  who  advance,  or  who  can  return,  as  fresh  in 
spirit  and  as  innocent  as  when  they  entered.  Some,  feeling  as  if 
no  certainty  could  be  reached,  or,  after  unwinding  the  folds  of  the 
mystery,  that  nothing  wonderful  or  worthy  has  been  discovered, 
have  come  to  the  settled  conclusion  that  it  is  vain  for  them  ever 
after  to  expect,  to  find  certainty,  to  reach  felt  assurance,  or  even  to 
look  for  anything  wortli  seeing,  and  so  give  themselves  up  to 
listlessncss  and  apathy.  Wandering  till  they  have  become  be- 
wildered, as  if  in  a  deep  and  gloomy  forest,  they  sit  down  with  the 
intention  of  never  rising  ;  or,  like  persons  wearied  and  worn  out 
in  snowdrift,  they  lie  down  to  become  benumbed,  and  are  ready  to 
perish  in  cold.  Still  worse  consequences  have  followed.  How 
often  does  the  eager  youth  rush  on  till  he  falls  into  the  abyss ! — 

"  He  eagerly  pursues, 
Beyond  tlie  realnts  of  dreams,  that  fleeting  shade; 
He  overleaps  the  bounds !" 

Entering  into  tlie  labyrinth  to  survey  its  wonders,  he  is  lost  in 
its  numberless  passages  and  its  endless  windings  without  being 
able  to  find  his  way  back  to  the  open  light  and  air  ;  nay,  how  often 
has  it  happened  that  the  builder  of  such  intricacies  has  himself 
been  imprisoned  and  entomlDcd  within  them !  Or,  rushing  eagerly 
to  solve  the  sphinx  riddles  which  Nature  is  propounding,  and 
nnable  to  find  the  solution,  he  must  pay  the  awful  penalty  to  that 
terrible  power,  which  insists  on  a  reply,  and  crushes  those  who  try 
and  do  not  succeed !  Some  have  entered  with  lively  anticipations 
this  temple  of  mystery,  only  to  come  out  opi)ressed  with  doubt  or 
with  the  language  of  scorn  and  scepticism  on  their  lips  ;  they  have 
seen  all,  tliey  say,  been  in   the  very  Holy  of  Holies,  and  found  it 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION,  Tl 

empty,  with  no  God  dwelling  between   the  Cherubim   or  uttering 
his  voice  in  the  Shechinah. 

"  He  dropped  his  plummet  down  the  broad, 
Deep  universe,  and  said,  '  No  God,' 
Finding  no  bottom," 

SECT.  IV.  — METHOD    OF    INVESTIGATING    AND    INTERPRETING    OUR 

INTUITIONS. 

Two  questions  require  to  be  answered  in  all  metaphysical  inves- 
tigation. The  one  is,  What  is  the  nature  of  the  intuition  itself? 
and  the  other,  What  is  the  nature  of  the  object  at  which  it  looks, 
and  for  which  it  is  the  guarantee  ?  These  two  inquiries  are  to  be 
prosecuted  in  one  and  the  same  way, — that  is,  in  the  method  of 
induction, — not  with  sense,  but  consciousness,  as  our  informant. 
There  is  really  no  other  manner  of  determining  the  nature  of  the 
intuitional  power,  its  law,  rule,  and  manner  of  operation,  nor  any 
other  mode  of  ascertaining  what  is  the  kind  of  object  or  truth 
revealed  by  that  power.  I  know  of  no  shorthand  or  summary 
way,  by  logic  or  cogitation,  of  settling  these  two  essential  questions 
in  philosophy.  It  might  have  been  different  if  man  had  been 
conscious  of  the  intuition  as  an  intuition.  In  this  case  it  would 
only  have  been  needful  to  look  within  by  the  internal  sense  in 
order  to  find  its  nature.  But  just  as  the  law  of  gravitation  is  not 
written  on  the  face  of  the  sky  so  that  the  eye  can  see  it,  so  neither 
is  the  law  of  causation  printed  on  the  soul  so  that  consciousness 
can  read  off  the  inscription.  The  one  law,  like  the  other,  is  to  be 
ascertained  by  an  investigation  of  its  individual  acts,  and  this  in  a 
state  of  things  in  which  the  action  of  one  property  is  closely  inter- 
blended  with  that  of  other  properties;  necessitating  not  only  an 
observation  of  facts,  but  a  very  patient  and  discerning  induction, 
so  that  we  may  catch  the  rule  of  the  different  agencies. 

The  task,  so  far  as  the  second  question  is  concerned,  might  have 
been  easier  if  all  our  intuitions  had  been  constructed  so  as  to  dis- 
cover one  and  the  same  kind  of  truth.  But  as  each  of  the  senses 
is  organized  to  discover  its  own  kind  of  material  qualities,  so  each  of 
the  internal  perceptions  reveals  its  peculiar  object  or  truth,  and  in 
its  own  peculiar  manner.     As  inductive  inquiry  into  the  nature  of 


72  CHABACTEBS  OF  OUB  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 

perception  tliroiigli  tlic  eye  will  not  settle  for  us  wlat  is  the  nature 
of  perception  through  the  touch,  so  neither  can  an  investigation  of 
anv  one  intuition  settle  for  us  the  nature  of  the  apprcliension 
which  the  others,  or  any  of  the  others,  are  fitted  to  furnish.  The 
metaphysician,  in  conducting  his  delicate  inquiries,  must  go  over 
tlie  intuitions  one  by  one,  asking  of  each  what  it  has  to  say  of 
itself,  and  what  is  the  vision  which  it  has  to  disclose ;  in  this 
respect  acting  like  the  divine  who  has  the  proper  respect  for  reve- 
lation, and  who  does  not  determine  beforehand  what  the  inspired 
record  should  say,  but  reverently  asks,  What  saith  the  Scripture  ? 
A  thousand  errors  have  arisen  in  philosophy  from  omitting  to  look 
at  our  intuitions  individually,  and  from  affirming  of  all  what  may 
be  true  only  of  some. 

It  is  the  special  office  of  the  metaphysician  to  go  to  our  intui- 
tions one  by  one,  and  ask,  What  does  it  say  of  itself?  what  does  it 
profess  to  look  at  and  discover  ?  This  latter  is  the  inquiry  which 
we  should  make  when  our  aim  is  to  discover  whether  the  convic- 
tion testifies  to  the  existence  of  an  object  or  truth  external  to,  or 
independent  of,  the  mind  perceiving  it.  To  give  some  examples. 
What,  we  may  ask,  is  the  object  attested  by  the  mind  when  it  is 
perceiving  through  the  senses  ?  The  answer  seems  to  be,  an  object 
external  to  self,  extended  and  moveable.  In  tliis  exercise,  and  in 
every  other  intelligent  exercise,  consciousness  testifies  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  self  in  intelligent  exercise.  There  are  other  operations  in 
which  the  mind  is  simply  imagining :  even  in  such  cases  it  has  a 
knowledge;  but  it  has  no  knowledge  of,  or  belief  in,  an  object 
external  to  the  mind.  If  I  am  picturing  a  griffin,  I  am  conscious 
of  self  thus  engaged,  but  I  have  no  intuitive  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  a  griffin,  independent  of  my  thinking  of  it,  as  I  have 
of  the  existence  of  this  pen  or  that  table  when  I  press  ray  hand 
upon  it.  In  the  interpretation  of  the  intuition  it  is  essential  to 
inquire  what,  if  any,  is  the  sort  of  object  to  the  existence  of  which 

it  testifies. 

These  two  are  different  from  yet  another  and  a  third  inquiry  : 
Does,  or  does  not,  the  intuition  speak  the  truth?  Is  it  not  possible 
that  it  may  deceive  us?  I  am  anxious  to  avoid  this  question  for 
the  pre-?ent,  and  defer  it  till  we  have  got  an  answer  to  the  two 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  73 

prior  ones, — What  is  tlie  nature  of  tlie  intuitions  ?  and  wliat  the 
precise  object  looked  at? — questions  which  will  be  settled  as  we 
examine  the  intuitions  in  order.  The  question  as  to  what  saith 
the  intuition  is  not  the  same  as  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
intuition  should  be  trusted.  It  is  expedient  to  determine  precisely 
what  the  witness  says,  before  we  inquire  whether  he  does  or  does 
not  speak  the  truth  ;  and  so  we  adjourn  this  last  question  to  the 
close  of  our  survey. 

In  questioning  the  witness  it  will  be  necessary,  when  a  testi- 
mony is  given  in  favour  of  a  reality  independent  of  the  contem- 
plative mind,  to  determine  very  precisely  what  is  the  sort  of 
reality.  In  particular  the  question  should  be  put,  Is  the  attesta- 
tion in  behalf  of  an  independent  thing,  or  merely  of  the  quality  of 
a  thing,  or  of  the  relation  between  one  thing  and  another,  or  what 
else  ?  For  example,  self-consciousness  seems  to  testify  in  behalf 
of  self  as  an  individual  existence,  and  sense-perception  seems  to 
assert  of  bodily  objects  that  they  have  a  separate  being  ;  but  when 
the  mind  contemplates  thinking,  or  solidity,  or  potency,  though  it 
undoubtedly  aflSrms  of  them  that  they  are  real,  it  does  not  look  on 
them  as  separate  entities,  as  this  paper  or  as  this  book  is.  The 
mind  declares  that  moral  excellence  is  a  reality,  and  not  a  figment ; 
but  it  does  not  attribute  the  same  sort  of  reality  to  it  as  it  does  to 
the  man  who  possesses  moral  excellence.  The  mind  seems  to  me 
to  declare  that  there  is  a  reality  in  space  and  time,  but  we  may 
land  ourselves  in  innumerable  difficulties  if  wo  make  rash  asser- 
tions as  to  the  kind  of  reality  we  give  them.  Unless  we  draw 
such  distinctions  we  may  altogether  misunderstand  the  testimony 
given,  and  then  be  tempted  to  charge  the  blunders  which  our  own 
hastiness  has  committed  on  our  mental  constitution.  And  yet 
these  are  distinctions  which  are  altogether  lost  sight  of  by  those 
who  juggle  with  the  phrases  "  objective"  and  "  subjective."  Even 
in  our  most  subjective  exercises,  as  when  the  mind  is  thinking  of 
one  of  its  own  states,  there  is  always  an  object  known,  namely, 
self ;  and  when  we  say  that  such  a  thing  has  an  objective  exist- 
ence, we  may  moan  a  great  many  different  things  which  should  be 
carefully  distinguished.' 

»  On  Subjective  and  Objective,  see  Part  iii.  Book  i.  Chap  ii.  sect.  vi.  SuppUmeniary, 


74  CHABACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part?.:. 

Tho  meaning  and  importance  of  these  cautions  may  best  be 
comprehended  by  giving  examples  of  the  evil  Avhich  has  arisen 
from  neglecting  them.  Kant  laboured  to  determine  more  critically 
than  had  been  done  before  tlie  nature  of  the  mind's  convictions 
reo-arding  space,  time,  and  causation,  and  he  stood  up  resolutely 
for  their  reality  ;  but  tlien  it  was  a  merely  subjective  reality,  a 
reality  in  the  mind.  Time  and  space  are  represented  by  him  as 
forms  under  which  we  cognize  all  phenomena  presented  to  the 
senses,  and  cause  and  effect  is  a  category  under  which  events  are 
arranged  by  the  understanding.  Now,  in  examining  this  theory,  I 
start  with  inquiring,  What  do  our  native  convictions  say  in  regard 
to  these  subjects?  Are  they  satisfied  when  it  is  said  that  time 
and  space  and  causation  have  no  existence  except  in  the  mind  ? 
They  seem  to  me,  on  the  contrary,  to  declare  that  time  and  space 
have  a  reality  out  of  the  mind,  and  independent  of  the  mind,  quite 
as  much  as  the  phenomena  which  we  discover  in  space  and  time, 
and  that  cause  and  effect  have  an  existence  quite  as  much  as  the 
events  which  they  connect.  No  doubt  I  may  deny  the  trust- 
worthiness of  my  intuitive  convictions  as  attesting  the  existence  of 
external  being,  but  immediately  after,  some  one,  proceeding  a  step 
further  in  the  same  direction,  will  deny  the  veracity  of  all  their 
other  testimonies,  till  we  are  landed  in  a  scepticism  which  sets 
aside  the  reality  of  things,  subjective  as  well  as  objective. 

This  is  an  illustration  of  evil  arising  from  a  refusal  to  listen  to 
our  convictions.  Mistakes  have  also  arisen  from  neglecting  the 
distinctions  between  the  kinds  of  testimony.  M.  Cousin  finds 
fault,  very  properly,  with  Kant  for  not  allowing  an  objective  exist- 
ence to  substance  and  causation  and  other  truths  attested  by  reason. 
But  then  he  does  not  institute  a  patient  inquiry  into  the  nature  of 
the  reality  which  the  mind  gives  to  such  things  as  substance  and 
cause  and  moral  good,  and  he  argues  as  if  these  must  have  the 
same  sort  of  reality  as  the  individual  soul  has,  or  as  an  individual 
acting  causally  has,  or  as  a  good  man  has  ;  and  he  has  thus  been 
led  to  argue  at  once,  from  our  idea  of  objective  substance  to  God 
as  absolute  substance,  from  creature  effect  to  God  as  the  supreme 
Cause,  and  from  the  idea  of  moral  good  to  the  existence  of  a  good 
God, — a  mode  of  argument  which  I  cannot  but  regard  as  inconclu- 


BOOK  II.]  2IETH0D   OF  APPLICATION.  75 

sive  and  highly  unsatisfactory,  the  more  so  as  it  operates,  with 
other  considerations,  to  lead  him  to  represent  God  as  a  cause  which 
must  create.^ 

By  steadily  adhering  to  this  method  of  induction,  and  attending 
to  such  cautions,  we  may  surely  hope  to  be  able  to  ascertain 
sometliing  as  to  the  original  principles  of  tlie  mind,  and  determine 
likewise  what  are  the  truths  guaranteed  by  them  ;  and  this,  I  appre- 
hend, is  the  main  work  which  metaphysics  should  attempt. 

In  regard  to  systems  not  built  upon  inductive  psychological 
proof,  I  confess  that  to  me  they  are  all  very  much  alike ;  they 
differ  only  in  respect  of  the  intellectual  temperament  of  the  indi- 
vidual constructing  them,  or  the  influences  under  which  he  has 
been  nurtured.  The  man  of  genius,  like  Schelling,  will  create  an 
ingenious  theory,  beautiful  as  the  golden  locks  of  the  setting  sun  ; 
the  man  of  vigourous  intellect,  like  Hegel,  will  erect  a  fabric  which 
looks  as  coherent  as  a  palace  of  ice  :  but  until  they  can  be  shown 
to  be  founded  on  the  inherent  principles  of  the  mind,  or  to  be  built 
up  of  materials  thence  derived,  I  wrap  myself  up  in  philosophic 
doubt,  as  not  being  sure  whether  they  may  not  disappear  while  I 
am  gazing  on  them. 

Nor  am  I  to  be  seduced  into  an  admiration  of  such  imposing 
systems  by  the  plea  often  urged  in  their  behalf,  that  they  furnish 
a  gymnasium  for  the  exercise  of  the  intellect.  I  acknowledge  that 
one  of  the  very  highest  advantages  of  study  of  every  description  is 
to  be  found  in  the  vigour  imparted  to  the  mind  which  engages  in  it. 
But  whatever  may  have  been  the  difficulty  of  finding  suitable  pur- 
suits in  the  days  of  the  Schoolmen,  it  is  not  necessary  now  to  resort 
to  fruitless  a  priori  speculation,  in  order  to  have  an  arena  in  which 
to  exercise  the  intellect.  Nay,  I  am  convinced  that  when  the 
research  conducts  to  no  solid  results,  it  will  weary  the  mind  witli- 
out  strengthening  it ;  the  effort  will  be  like  that  of  one  who  beat- 

>  See  a  summary  of  his  admirable  review  of  Kant,  Prem.  Ser.  torn.  v.  le^.  viii.  In  Prem. 
Ser,  torn.  ii.  le^.  vii.  viii,  xiv.  xxii.,  he  labours  to  show  that  the  ideas  of  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  good,  imply  the  existence  of  a  God  who  is  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good; 
and  in  Deux.  Ser.  torn.  i.  Ie9.  iv.  v.,  that  the  finite  implies  the  infinite,  that  the  effect  implies 
a  cause,  and  the  cause  an  effect.  In  these  last  lectures  he  had  spoken  of  God  as  neces- 
sarily creating.  In  Fragments  Philosophlques,  Aver,  de  la  trois.  ed.,  he  withdraws  the 
language,  "  necessity  of  creation,"  as  not  sufficiently  reverent  towards  the  Creator;  but  he 
adheres  to  the  meaning,  "Or  en  Dieu  surtout  la  force  est  adequate  a  la  substance,  et  la 
force  divine  est  toujoura  en  acte;  Dieu  est  douc  essentiellemout  actif  et  crcatcur." 


76  CIIABACTFJRS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

eth  the  air,  and  activity  will  always  be  followed  by  exhaustion,  by 
dissatisfaction,  and  an  unwillingness  to  make  further  exertion. 
Labour,  it  is  true,  is  its  own  reward  ;  but  if  there  be  no  other 
reward,  there  will  be  the  want  of  the  needful  incentive.  The 
vigour  im|:artcd  is  only  one  of  the  incidental  effects  which  follow 
when  work  is  undertaken  in  the  hope  of  securing  substantial  fruits. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  these  speculations,  though  unpro- 
ductive of  good,  are  not  fruitless  of  evil.  In  the  struggles  thus 
engendered  there  are  other  powers  of  the  mind  tried  as  well  as  the 
understanding ;  there  are  often  sad  agonizings  of  the  feelings,  of 
tlic  faith,  and  indeed  of  the  whole  soul,  which  feels  as  if  the 
foundation  on  which  it  previously  stood  had  been  removed  and 
none  other  supplied,  and  as  if  it  had  in  consequence  to  sink  for 
ever ;  or  as  if  it  were  doomed  to  move  for  ever  onward  without 
reaching  a  termination,  while  all  retreat  has  been  cut  off  behind. 
In  these  wrestlings  I  fear  that  many  wounds  are  inflicted,  which 
continue  long  to  rankle  and  often  terminate  in  something  worse 
than  the  dissolution  of  the  bodily  organism,  for  they  end  in  the 
loss  of  faith  and  of  peace,  in  cases  in  which  they  do  not  issue  in 
immorality,  in  scepticism,  or  in  blasphemy.  Any  sentiment  of 
admiration  which  might  be  excited  by  the  display  of  mental  power 
and  learning  on  the  part  of  the  speculators,  is  counteracted  in  my 
mind  by  more  painful  associations  than  the  Quaker  poet  connected 
with  the  sound  of  the  drum : — 

"  I  hate  that  drum's  discordant  sound, 
Parading  round  and  round  and  round ; 
To  me  it  talks  of  ravaged  plains, 
And  burning  towns  and  ruined  swains, 
And  mangled  limbs  and  dying  groans, 
And  widows'  tears  and  orphans'  moans, 
And  all  that  Misery's  hand  bestows 
To  iill  the  catalogue  of  human  woes." 

These  exercises,  I  suspect,  resemble  not  so  much  those  of  the 
gymnasium,  as  of  the  ancient  gladiatorial  shows,  in  which  no 
doubt  there  were  many  brilliant  feats  performed,  but  in  which  also 
members  were  mutilated,  and  the  heart's-blood  of  many  a  brave 
man  shed.  I  fear  that  in  not  a  few  cases  generous  and  courageous 
youths  have  entered  the  lists,  to  lose  in  the  contest  all  creed,  all 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  77 

religious,  and  in  some  cases,  all  moral  principle,  and  witli  these  all 

peace  and  all  stability  : — 

"  I  see  before  me  the  gladiator  lie, 
He  leans  upon  his  hand — his  manly  brow 
Consents  to  death,  but  conquers  agony  ; 
And  his  drooped  head  sinks  gradually  low : 
And  through  his  side  the  last  drops  ebbing  slow 
From  the  big  gash,  fall  heavy  one  by  one, 
Like  the  first  of  a  thunder-shower.     And  now 
The  arena  swims  around  him — he  is  gone  !" 


SECT,   V.-\VHAT    EXPLANATION    CAN    BE    GIVEN  OF  THE    INTUITIONS    OP 

THE  MIND? 

As  we  are  about  forthwith  to  ask  the  Intuitions  to  give  an 
account  of  themselves,  it  may  be  as  well  to  have  it  settled  what 
sort  of  information  we  may  expect  to  draw  from  them. 

Our  intuitions  are  at  once  the  clearest  and  the  darkest  objects 
which  the  mind  can  contemplate  ;  constituting  the  intellectual 
sense  by  which  we  get  all  our  original  knowledge,  it  is  found  to  be 
painful  to  turn  this  eye  back  upon  itself.  Truths  seen  by  intui- 
tions shine  in  their  own  light,  like  tlie  luminary  of  day,  and  any 
attempt  to  make  them  clearer  is  like  "  going  out  with  a  taper  to 
see  the  sun,"  and  yet  when  we  would  look  steadily  on  them  our 
eye  is  apt  to  be  blenched.  In.  another  respect  too  they  are  like 
the  sun — they  shine  the  brightest  when  we  get  the  first  glance  at 
them,  and  if  we  continue  to  gaze,  they  appear  dim  and  dark  to  our 
oppressed  vision.  And  yet  it  is  only  by  reflexly  looking  on  thera 
as  they  shine,  that  we  can  expect  to  be  able  to  determine  their 
form  and  dimensions. 

There  are  senses  in  wliicli  they  cannot,  there  are  senses  in  wliich 
tliey  can,  be  explained. 

I. — 1.  They  cannot  be  explained  in  the  sense  of  being  rendered 
intelligible  to  any  one  naturally  witliout  them.  He  who  is  bora 
blind  cannot  be  made  to  sec  colours  by  help  of  a  microscope  or 
telescope,  nor  could  the  most  vivid  description  communicate  any 
idea  of  them.  In  like  manner,  if  there  were  a  human  being  with- 
out the  intuitions,  he  could  not  be  made  to  understand  the  objects 
which  they  reveal  :    he  who  does  not  see  them  when  he  opens  his 


78  CIIABACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [pakt  i. 

eyes  will  never  be  enabled  to  behold  them  by  any  logical  process 
of  explanation  or  definition.  If  men  were  without  the  native 
capacity  of  perceiving  extension,  or  power  of  discerning  moral 
good,  it  would  be  impossible  by  any  description  or  argument  to 
convey  the  dimmest  idea  of  them.  This  is  one  reason  why  the 
subject  of  our  original  perceptions  has  been  felt  to  be  so  very 
mysterious.  It  is  seen  that  human  discussion  can  do  nothing  in 
clearing  them  up,  and  that  if  it  attempt  to  do  so,  it  is  only  "  dark- 
ening counsel  by  words  without  knowledge."  But  all  this  dazzling 
of  our  eye  arises  not  from  any  darkness  enveloping  them,  but  from 
the  very  brightness  of  the  light  in  which  they  shine. 

2.  They  cannot  be  explained  in  the  sense  of  being  resolved  into 
simpler  elements.  In  physical  science  we  can  gain  important  in- 
formation regarding  many  objects,  by  resolving  them  into  their 
constituents  ;  even  there,  however,  we  come  to  simple  substances 
which  cannot  be  decomposed.  In  mental  science  we  can  explain 
many  phenomena  by  explicating  the  processes  involved  in  the 
formation  of  them  ;  thus,  in  regard  to  the  perception  of  distance  by 
the  eye,  we  can  show  what  are  the  original  endowments  of  the 
sense  of  sight,  and  what  are  the  acquisitions  of  experience  ;  and  in 
regard  to  reasoning,  we  can  point  out  the  relation  of  premises  and 
conclusion.  But  in  the  process  of  decomposition  we  must  come  to 
simple  properties  which  admit  of  no  analysis.  The  intuitive  prin- 
ciples of  the  mind  arc  the  simple  powers  to  which  we  owe  all  our 
original  cognitions  :  he  who  would  attempt  to  cut  these  atoms 
will  find  the  edge  of  his  analysis  bent  back  and  blunted,  as  the 
razor  is  when  it  is  applied  to  the  rock. 

3.  They  cannot  be  explained  in  the  sense  of  being  referred  to 
higher  principles  from  which  they  derive  their  authority.  Some 
phenomena,  both  material  and  mental,  can  be  thus  shown  to  hang 
on  higher  truths  :  tlie  movements  of  the  planets  and  of  the  moon 
up  in  the  sky,  are  dependent  on  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  on  the 
collocation  of  the  several  bodies.  We  may  lawfully  and  profitably 
seek  out  for  the  authority  on  which  certain  of  our  apprehensions 
or  cognitions  rest :  wo  may  trace  the  steps,  for  example,  by  which 
we  are  led  to  believe  that  Julius  Ccesar  lived,  or  that  Jesus  Christ 
died  and  rose  again,  or  those  by  which  we  come  to  be  assured  that 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  79 

the  square  of  the  hypotenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal  to 
the  square  of  the  other  two  sides.  But  in  all  such  regressions  we 
must  at  last  come  back  to  something  original,  and  having  its  au- 
thority in  itself. 

For  some  things  we  must  have  a  foundation,  but  we  do  not  seek 
for  a  foundation  for  everything.  It  was  the  idea  that  everything 
must  lean  on  something  else,  which  led  the  Indians  to  place  the 
earth  on  the  back  of  an  elephant,  and  to  make  the  elephant  stand 
on  a  tortoise.  I  use  this  as  a  mere  illustration.  It  is  quite  true 
that  most  truths  known  to  us  stand  on  other  truths.  But  we  come 
at  last  to  truths  which  stand  on  nothing  else.  The  mind  does  not 
feel  on  this  account  that  the  truths  are  less  stable.  It  is  convinced 
as  to  certain  truths  that  they  need  something  else  to  lean  on  ;  but 
of  certain  truths  it  sees  that  they  bear  up  other  truths  and  yet 
themselves  need  no  support  beyond  or  beneath  them ;  and  it  sees 
that  these  are  the  truths  which  are  the  firmest  and  the  most  secure. 
He  who  would  go  beyond  them  is  going  further  back  than  the 
beginning  ;  he  who  would  go  further  down  is  trying  to  get  beneath 
the  foundation. 

II.  But  there  are  senses  in  which  an  account  or  an  explanation 
can  be  given  of  them. 

1.  Negative  definitions  may  be  given  of  them.  The  knowledge 
being  in  its  very  nature  the  simplest  of  all,  we  cannot  make  it 
simpler.  But  if  any  one  mistakes  in  regard  to  the  objects,  and 
says  that  they  possess  qualities  which  we  know  do  not  belong  to 
them,  then  we  can  correct  him.  We  can  by  reason  of  our  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  objects  make  an  indefinite  number  of  negative 
assertions  regarding  them.  Thus,  we  can  affirm  of  self  perceiving 
that  it  is  different  from  the  body  perceived,  of  extension  that  it  is 
not  the  same  as  consciousness  or  intelligence,  of  space  and  time 
that  they  can  have  no  bounds,  of  moral  excellence  that  it  is  not 
the  same  as  the  pleasurable,  and  of  vice  that  it  is  not  the  same  as 
the  painful.  These  negative  propositions  may  be  made  to  face 
error  from  whatever  quarter  it  makes  its  hostile  assaults. 

2.  Tlieir  peculiar  character  may  be  brought  out  by  abstraction. 
In   their   spontaneous  manifestation    they  are  concrete  or  mixed, 


80  CIIAEACTEIIS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

that  is,  several  intuitions  arc  mingled  in  one  act,  or  the  intuitive 
perceptions  are  bound  up  with  derivative  or  experiential  processes. 
As  long  as  our  reflex  inspection  embraces  all  this,  it  is  indistinct 
and  confnscd,  and  -\ve  arc  liable  to  err  when  we  begin  to  construct 
propositions  ;  for  what  we  assert  of  the  wliolc  may  be  true  only  of 
some  or  one  of  the  parts.  But  by  mental  analysis  we  can  make 
the  intuition  we  wish  to  examine  stand  out  apart  from  its  usual 
concomitants, — just  as  by  experiment  in  physical  science  we  can 
separate  the  powers  which  usually  work  in  conjunction ;  separate, 
for  example,  in  the  exhausted  receiver  of  an  air-pump  the  gravity 
wliich  draws  a  body  to  the  earth  from  the  resistance  offered  to  its 
descent  liy  the  atmosphere,  or  make  oxygen,  or  electricity,  never 
found  by  itself  in  nature,  exhibit  its  properties  aloof  from  all  other 
agents.  Looking  at  it  thus,  we  can  distinguish  and  express  its 
peculiarity.  Not  that  this  expression  could  convey  any  meaning 
to  one  without  tiie  intuition,  but  to  a  person  with  the  appropriate 
sense  and  who  had  experienced  its  workings,  the  meaning  would 
flash  at  once  upon  the  vision.  For  example,  there  is  never  a  knowl- 
edge of  not-self  without  a  co-existing  knowledge  of  self;  but  by 
abstraction  we  can  distinguish  the  tv/o,  and  look  at  each  by  itself. 
We  shall  see  that  there  is  never  perception  through  the  senses 
without  a  conjoined  sensation,  but  by  a  mental  chemistry  we  can 
separate  the  elements  and  examine  the  nature  of  each. 

3.  By  a  like  process  the  nature  of  the  object  intuitively  known 
can  be  distinctly  exhibited.  Not  indeed  that  it  could  be  appre- 
hended by  any  one  without  the  proper  faculty,  but  to  one  with  the 
corresponding  intuition  its  character  can  be  specified.  Thus  we 
can,  in  intelligible  language,  describe  the  not-self  as  extended  or 
in  motion,  and  the  self  as  thinking  or  feeling,  or  represent  the 
extension  of  body  as  its  being  contained  in  space  and  occupying 
space,  and  virtue  as  the  approvable  quality  of  voluntary  actions  of 
intelligent  beings,  and  tlie  mind  at  once  understands  what  is  meant 
to  be  affirmed  of  the  objects. 

4.  We  may  generalize  or  classify  the  intuitions.'  Fixing  by 
abstraction  on  certain  common  qualities,  we  may  tlien,  by  generali- 

'  Locke  says  truly,  that  if  we  include  all  self-evident  propositions,  principles  will  be 
almost  infinite  {Essar^  Book  ii.  Chap.  vii.  sect.  x).     Hence  the  need  of  generalizing  them. 


BOOK  II.]  METHOD   OF  APPLICATION.  81 

zation,  place  all  those  possessing  tliem  into  one  class..  We  may 
begin  with  the  more  marked  and  decided  points  of  resemblance, 
with  their  implied  differences,  and  this  will  give  us  the  grand 
divisions.  We  may  then  subdivide,  according  to  other,  and  minor, 
but  still  important  points  of  resemblance  and  difference,  in  due 
ordination  and  subordination,  as  far  as  the  purposes  of  science 
require.  In  this  Treatise  we  classify  the  intuitions  according  to 
what  they  look  at  and  reveal,  as — 

I.    THE   TRUE.  II.    THE    GOOD. 

Both  True  and  Good 

CONTAIN 
I.  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.     II.  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.     III.  PRIMITB^E  JUDGMENTS. 

The  justification  of  this  arrangement  can  be  found  only  in  its 
embracing  all  the  phenomena,  and  of  this  the  reader  must  judge 
as  the  exposition  proceeds. 

I  speak  of  our  intuitions  as  looking  to  the  true  and  the  good, 
and  the  true  and  the  good  thus  perceived  have  a  reality,  but  tliis 
is  not  to  be  understood  as  a  reality  of  the  same  sort  as  is  possessed 
by  individual  things,  which  may  be  true  or  good.  They  have  a 
reality,  not  as  individual  entities,  but  as  common  qualities,  which 
should  be  expressed  by  a  common  epithet.  But  the  qualities 
always  imply  individual  objects,  in  which  they  inliere.  And 
wherever  the  qualities  of  knowledge  and  moral  excellence  are  to 
be  found  in  the  creature,  they  are  but  emanations  from  the  Creator. 
The  streams,  if  we  follow  them,  will  lead  us  up  to  the  Fountain. 
It  will  be  seen  that  our  intuitive  convictions,  whether  they  relate 
to  the  true  or  the  good,  all  conduct  us  to  Him  who  is  emphat- 
ically the  True  and  the  Good. 


6 


82  CIIABACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 


CHAP  TEE   III. 

(SUPPLEMENTARY.) 

BRIEF    CRITICAL    REVIEW   OF    OPINIONS  IN   REGARD 
TO  INTUITIVE   TRUTHS. 

L  The  Pre-Socratic  Schools  op  Greece. — The  Greek  philosophers  who 
flourished  in  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  before  Christ,  if  they  did  not  exactly 
discuss,  did,  at  least,  start  the  question  of  man's  native  power  of  intuition.  The 
Ionian  School,  founded  by  Thales,  and  continued  by  Anaximander,  Anaximenes, 
Anaxagoras,  and  others,  dwelling  among  material  elements,  found  only  the 
mutable  and  the  fleeting ;  till  at  length  it  was  laid  down  systematically  by 
Heraclitus,  that  all  things  are  in  a  state  of  perpetual  flux,  under  the  power  of 
an  ever-kindling  and  ever-extinguishing  fire.  Eunning  to  the  opposite  extreme, 
the  Elcatic  School,  of  which  Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  and  Zeno  were  the  most 
illustrious  masters,  appealed  altogether  from  sense  (a'aB-rjaii)  and  opinion  (c56fo) 
to  reason  Q^oyoq)  ;  fixed  its  attention  on  the  abiding  nature  of  things  beneath 
all  mutation  ;  dived  into  profound,  but  over-subtle,  and  often  confused  and 
quibbling  disquisitions  regarding  Being ;  and  ended  by  making  all  things  so 
fixed  that  change  and  motion  became  impossible.  It  was  in  the  very  midst  of 
the  collision  of  these  sects  that  Socrates  was  reared.  Professing  to  have  only  a 
practical  aim  in  view,  he  yet,  in  putting  down  the  opposition  to  that  end,  in- 
dulged in  all  the  subtlety  of  a  Greek  intellect,  and  thus  stimulated  the  clialectic 
spirit  of  his  pupil  Plato,  who  sought  to  harmonize  the  fleeting  and  the  fixed. 

n.  Plato. — It  would  be  altogether  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  some  have  done, 
that  Plato  is  for  ever  inquiiing  into  the  origin  of  ideas  in  the  mind,  like  the 
metaphysicians  who  came  after  Descartes  and  Locke.  His  aim  was  of  a  charac- 
ter loftier  and  wider,  but  more  unattainable  by  the  cogitation  of  one  thinker,  or 
indeed  by  cogitation  at  all.  Nor  was  it  his  object  to  discover  the  absolute,  as  if 
he  had  been  reared  in  the  schools  of  Schelling  or  Hegel.  His  grand  aim  was  to 
discover  the  real  (to  ov)  and  the  abiding,  amidst  the  illusions  of  sense  and  the 
mutations  of  things.  And  in  following  this  end  he  sought  prematiu'ely  to  deter- 
mine questions  which  can  be  settled  only  by  a  long  course  of  patient  induction, 
carried  on  by  a  succession  of  observers  of  the  world  without  and  the  world 
within.  But  in  the  search  he  started  many  deep  views  of  God,  of  man,  and  of 
the  world,  which  have  been  established  by  the  Bible,  and  by  inductive  mental 
and  physical  science.  1.  He  everywhere  proceeds  on  the  doctrine  that  man  is 
possessed  of  a  power  of  reason  Q^oyor,  or  vovc,  or  voriaic)  above  sense,  or  faith,  or 
vmderstanding  ((huvoia).  2.  This  reason  contemplates  ideas  (Idem,  or  sUti)  supra- 
sensible,  immutable,  eternal,  which  ideas  are  realities.     3.  He  sees  that  there  is 


BOOK  II.]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  83 

a  process  of  tliouglit,  specially  of  abstraction,  in  order  to  the  mind  rising  to 
these  ideas :  rh  6v  is  represented  as  vorjaei  hetu  loyov  7repi?.T}--uv  (7V?».  29).  4.  The 
discovery  of  these  ideas  should  be  the  special  aim  of  the  philosoj)her,  and  the 
gazing  on  them  the  highest  exercise  of  wisdom.  But  Plato  moves  above  our 
earth  like  the  sun,  with  so  dazzling  a  light  that  we  feel  unable,  or  unwilling,  to 
look  too  narrowly  into  the  exact  body  of  truth  which  sheds  such  a  lustre.  1.  He 
has  given  a  wrong  account  of  the  reality  in  those  eternal  ideas,  making  them 
the  only  realities ;  denying  reality  to  the  objects  of  sense,  except  in  so  far  as 
they  partake  of  them,  and  seeming  to  make  them  independent  even  of  the 
Divine  Mind.  2.  Under  the  one  phrase,  "  idea,"  he  gathers  an  aggregate  of  things 
which  require  to  be  distinguished, — such  as  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good, 
unity  and  being,  natui'al  law  and  moral  law,  the  fonns  of  objects,  and  even  the 
universals  fashioned  arbitrarily  by  the  mind.  By  heaping  together  and  con- 
founding all  these  things  which  should  be  carefully  distinguished,  he  has  given 
a  grandeur  to  his  views,  but  at  the  expense  of  clearness  and  accuracy.  3.  He  does 
not  see  that  ideas  exist  naturally  in  the  mind  merely  in  the  form  of  laws  or  rules. 
To  account  for  them  he  is  obliged  to  suppose  that  the  soul  preexisted,  and 
that  the  calling  up  of  the  ideas  is  a  sort  of  reminiscence.  4.  He  does  not  see 
how  the  mind  reaches  them  in  their  abstract,  general,  or  philosophic  fonn.  He 
did  not  observe  that  the  mind  begins  with  the  knowledge  of  particular  objects 
and  must  thence  rise  by  induction  to  generals.  He  thus  laid  himself  open  to 
the  assaults,  always  acute,  often  just,  at  times  captious,  of  Aiistotle,  who  saw 
that  the  general  existed  in  the  individuals,  and  that  it  was  fi-om  the  singulars 
that  man  rose  to  the  universals  (Metaph.  i.  9).  5.  He  attaches  an  extravagant 
value  to  the  contemiilation  of  these  ideas  in  their  abstract  and  general  form. 
Overlooking  the  other  pm-poses  served  by  ideas,  and  their  indissoluble  con- 
nexion with  singulars, — forgetting  that  philosophy  consists  in  viewino-  law  in 
relation  to  its  objects,— he  represents  the  mind  as  in  its  highest  exercise  when 
it  is  gazing  upon  them  in  their  essence,  formless  and  colom-less  :  'H  yug  uxpunanc 
TE  Kol  uaxvfJ-uTiijToc  Kol  uva(p?/c  ovata  ovTug  ovaa  ipvxyc  Kvj3epv?jTy,  /lovu  deary  vu  xp?/Tar 
irepl  7/v  Tu  T/'/r  uAr/dovc  eTTtarfifiTjc  yevog  tovtov  tjet  tuv  tottov  (Ph(edn/s,  58).  He  thus 
prepared  the  way  for  the  extravagancies  of  the  Neoplatouist  School  of  Plotinus 
and  Proclus,  who  reckoned  the  mind  as  in  its  loftiest  state  when  under  an 
intuition  or  ecstasy,  which  looks  on  the  One  and  the  Good,  and  who  found  I 
believe,  the  gazing  idle  and  uni^rofitable  enough. 

HI.  Aeistotle.— His  views,  if  not  so  grand  as  those  of  Plato,  are  much 
more  sober  and  definite.  He  has  specified  most  of  the  separate  characteristics 
of  intuition,  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  how  he  reconciles  his  several  state- 
ments. 1.  He  has  a  power,  or  faculty,  called  Novc,  which  he  represents  as  con- 
cerned with  the  principles  of  thought  and  being  :  '0  vovc  larl  irepl  rdf  uqxuc  tuv 
vorjTCiv  Kol  TUV  I'vTiJv  (Mag.  Mor.  i.  35).  Elsewhere  he  shows  that  it  cannot  be 
(ppovrjiyir,  nor  ao<pta,  nor  encan/fiv,  but  vovg,  which  has  to  do  with  the  principles  of 
science :  Ae'nrsTai  vovv  elvni  tuv  upx^^v  (Eth.  Nic.  vi.  6  ;  ed.  Michelet).  2.  He  fixes 
on  self-evidence  and  independence  as  tests  of  what  he  calls  first  tniths  and 
principles.  First  truths  are  those  whose  credit  is  not  through  others,  but  of 
themselves :  Eirrt  f5'  d7^rj(]Ti  filv  koI  npuTa  tu  ju/}  ih'  ertpuv  uX2.u  61'  avruv  txovTa  t/jv 
-iriariv  ov  6d  yuQ  Iv  Taic  iT^iaTrnxovmaig  upxalg  l-iri^TiTEicOai  to  (hu  tl,  u17J  iKuaTTjv  tuv 
apxuv  avT?/v  icaff  tavTi/v  elvai  niarr/v  {Top.  i.  1 ;  ed.  Waitz).  3.  He  fixes  on  necessity 
as  a  test.     Thus  he  speaks  of  necessary  principles,  and  of  their  being  inherent 


81  CHARACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

iu  tilings:  EZ  olu  ia-iv  >'/  uTrodeiK-iK?/  i-iar///j.)j  l^  uvayKaiuv  upxov  (o  yap  iniararai,  ov 
(ifvuTuv  uAA(jf  ix^iv),  Tu  6k  Kad'  avru  v-dpxovTa  dvayaala  Toig  npayfiaaiv,  k.t.X.  {Anal. 
Post.  i.  6).  T(i  ki  dvayKijg  ovra  d;r/laif  uidia,  ■Kavra  tu,  6'  didia  uyevTjTa  koI  u<pOapTa 
Etli.  JS'ic.  vi.  3).  4.  Ill  which  passage  etei'nity  is  spoken  of  as  a  characteristic 
of  necessary  truth,  o.  It  is  a  favoimta  maxim  with  him  that  everything  cannot 
be  proven.  He  says  tliat  all  science  is  not  demonstrative,  that  the  science  of 
things  immediate  is  undemonstrable ;  for  as  all  demonstration  is  ii'om  things 
prior,  we  must,  at  last,  arrive  at  tilings  immediate  which  are  not  demonstrable : 
'Hung  di  (pd/iep,  ovre  nuaav  i—iaTyfiTjv  UTTodecKTCKyv  elvac,  JZAa  ttjv  tuv  ufisauv  dvano- 
SsiKTOv  Kol  ToUd'  uTi  dvajKalov,  (^avepov  ei  yug  uvdyKT]  filv  hivicTacdaL  tu  npoTepa  kclL  k^ 
i)v  tj  uTcodei^ig,  laraTat,  6i  ttute  tu,  ufieaa,  TavY  dvaiiodeiKTa  uvdyKr}  elvai  (Anal.  Post. 
i.  3)  ;  see  also  i.  23,  where  he  says  there  must  be  principles  of  demonstration : 
TUV  uTTodeiieuv  utl  dvdyiit}  dpxug  elvai.  He  speaks  of  science  and  demonstration 
carrying  us  to  intuition,  vovg  (lb.  i.  23)  ;  see  also  ii.  19,  where  voi'c  is  said  to  give 
principles :  voce  dv  elr]  tQv  dpx'^v.  He  blames  those  who  seek  for  a  reason  of  those 
things  of  which  there  is  no  reason  :  /mjov  yug  ^titovolv  uv  ovk  tuTi  /.6yoc  (Metapli. 
iii.  6).  G.  He  appeals  to  catholic  consent,  adding  that  those  who  reject  this 
faith  will  find  nothing  more  trustworthy  :  o  yug  izuai,  6okeI,  tovt"  elvai  tpu/iev  6  6 
dvaiputv  Tavrr/v  t//v  nicTiv  ou  Tidvv  inaTOTepa  ipel  (EtJl.  Nic.  X.  2).  7.  He  cll'aws  the 
distinction  between  two  classes  of  truths.  We  believe  all  things,  either  through 
syllogism  or  from  induction  :  unavTa  yilg  Tncrrsvo/iev  rj  Siu,  av?Jioyta/xov  y  ef  eTzayuy^g 
{Anal.  Prior,  ii.  23).  To  nature,  the  syllogism  is  the  prior  and  the  more  known ; 
but  to  us,  that  which  is  through  induction  is  the  more  palpable :  ^vaei  /xlv  ovv 
TTp'jfcpor  Kol  yvuQL[iuTEpog  6  Scu  Tou  HEGOv  cv') J) .oy Lc [iog ,  tifuv  6'  IvapyidTepog  6  6lu  Trjg 
l-ayuy'ig  (11. ;  comj)ar8  Eth.  Nic.  vi.  3).  In  explaining  this,  he  says  that  he  calls 
"  things  prior  and  more  knowable  to  us"  those  which  are  nearer  to  sense,  and 
"  things  prior  and  more  knowable  simply"  those  which  are  more  remote  ;  but 
those  things  which  are  universal,  belong  to  the  most  remote,  and  those  which 
are  singular,  to  the  nearest :  Aiyu  61  rrpof  y^iug  filv  npoTspa  _  kol  yvupifiuTepa  to, 
eyyvTepov  rz/f  aladijaeug,  unAutg  6k  irpoTepa  koI  yvupi/xuTspa  to.  nof)^uTepov  tare  6i 
7rof)f)uTuTu  iJ.lv  TU  KaOoTiov  /xdXiaTa,  tyyvTuTu  61  tu  Kad'  inaara  (Anal.  Post.  i.  2). 
But  the  question  is  started.  How  does  the  human  mind,  which  must  begin  with 
the  singulars,  as  better  known  to  it,  reach  the  universal  ?  He  seems  to  say,  in 
the  following  passage,  we  reach  universal  truth  thi'ough  induction  :  Mavddvofiev 
7/  i~ayu)7i  '/  d~o6ei^Ei.'  Igtl  d'  /}  jilv  d-odei^iQ  Ik  tCjv  kuBu'/mv,  y  6'  l-ayuyij  Ik  tCv  kutu 
uepoc'  u6vvaT0v  61  tu  kuOo/mv  deupi/cai  fiij  6i'  ETcayuyiJx,  iTiS),  ndl  tu  ef  u(paLpEa£uc 
7.eyo[iEva  eotoi,  6i'  kTvayuyijg  yvwpLfia  ■xoiEiv,  otl  vndpxEi  ekugto)  ysvei  ivia,  Kal  ei  /ij) 
Xupi-GTu  EGTiv,  y  Toiov6'  EKUGTov  ETTOxOi/vai  61  fiij  EXOvTug  aiGdj/Giv  u6vvaT0V  Tuiv  yup  Kad" 
maoTov  fj  aiGdTjGic'  ov  yap  b>6EXETaL  7iapE\v  avTuv  tijv  ETriGTTi/iijv  ovre  yap  ek  tuv  KaOo- 
2.0V  uvev  ETrayuy~/c,  ovte  61  Lrrayuy'/c  uvev  tF/c  a'lGdyacug  (lb.  i.  18 ;  cf.  Eth.  Nic, 
vi.  3).  All  these  are  important  principles.  But  how  does  he  reconcile  them  ? 
How  in  particular  does  he  reconcile  his  doctrine,  that  universals  are  gained  by 
induction,  with  his  statement  as  to  the  mind  having  a  vovg  which  looks  at  prin- 
ciples ?  There  are  passages  in  his  3fetapJiysics  which  show  that  such  questions  had 
been  before  his  mind.  The  question  is  put  whether  fii-st  principles  are  universal, 
or  as  singulars  of  things ;  and  the  further  and  most  important  question,  whether 
they  subsist  in  capacity  or  in  energy,  that  is,  whether  they  exist  virtually  or  in 
act :  HoTFpov  ai  dpxal  KaOu/.ov  elalv  r/  dig  tu  ko'^'  Ikugtu  tuv  Tvpay/iuTuv,  koI  6vvdfj£i 
n  ivepyeia  (Metaph.  ii.  1 ;  ed.  Bonitz).  I  have  already  quoted  (on  page  35)  his 
declaration  that  the  soul  is  the  place  of  forms,  not  in  readiness  for  action, 


BOOK  II.]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  85 

but  in  capacity :  ov-e  h>r€?.ex^ia  u?2u  dwufiei  TO.  r.ST].  In  another  passage  lie 
seems  to  answer,  that  those  things  which  are  predicated  of  individuals  are  first 
principles  rather  than  the  genera,  but  adds  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  express 
liow  one  should  conceive  these  fii'st  pnucij)les :  'E/c  filv  ovv  tov-uv  fid/i/.ov  <paiveTai  -d 
STzl  tC)v  u~6fj.i,)V  KaTTjyopov/iera  upxa'^  f.'i'Qj  -<Lv  yevHv  ttuJ.lv  6e  iriLg  av  (hi  ravrn^  "P/Y'-f 
ino?Mi3eiv  ov  {)i6iov  el~£iv.  For  this  statement  he  gives  reasons,  which  lead  him  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  universals  which  are  predicated  of  individuals  are  prin- 
ciples in  the  ratio  of  their  universality,  and  that  the  very  highest  generaliza- 
tions must  be  emj)hatically  principles :  T/>  /ilv  ydp  upx^v  Set  K<il  t/>  alrlav  elvai 
irapa  tu  wpdy/xara  uv  upx'/^  «^-i  SvvaaOai  elvai  x'^P'-^'^fJ-^vriv  avruv  roiovrov  6s  rt,  Trapil 
rb  KaO'  tKaarov  elvai  diu  ri  uv  tlc  vtto?mj3oi,  it/j,v  cti  Kad6?MV  KaTTiyopEiTai  ndl  Katii 
1TUVTUV  ;  d/./.d  firjv,  el  6iu  tovto,  tu  fid/JiOV  Ka66?.ov  /xd?.?MV  Oereov  dpxdc  uare  dpxdl  rd 
npur'  uv  e'iTjGav  yevi]  {IT),  ii.  3).  There  are  points  of  connexion  not  brought  out 
in  this  statement.  But  Ave  are  not  rashly  to  charge  Aristotle  with  an  inconsis- 
tency. I  believe  that  his  statement  as  to  first  truths  and  syllogism,  and  his 
statement  as  to  the  universality  of  induction,  are  both  true.  But  he  has  not 
drawn  the  distinction  between  first  principles  as  forms  in  the  mind,  and  as 
individual  convictions,  and  as  laws  got  by  induction ;  nor  has  he  seen  how  the 
self-evidence  and  necessity,  being  in  the  singulars,  goes  up  into  the  universals 
when  (Ijut  only  when)  the  induction  is  proj^erly  formed. 


IV.  The  Stoics  were  the  first,  so  far  as  is  known,  to  lay  dowo  the  principle 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  intellect  which  was  not  pre^aously  in  the  senses 
(see  Origen,  contra  Celstim^  Book  vii).  But  those  who  quote  this  statement  often 
forget  that  the  Stoics  placed  in  the  mind  a  ruling  principle  (J/ye/ioviKov),  and  main- 
tained that  we  have  innate  twoim  and  7Tpo?ir/ipetr.  According  to  Cicero,  lopicn, 
they  held  by  a  notion,  "  insitam  et  ante  iJercejDtam  cujusque  formse  cognitionem 
enodatione  indigentem."  Diogenes  Laertius  represents  them  as  maintaining  ean 
(5'  ?/  7rp6?.7ific  hvoia  ^vaiKi'/  tQv  Ka66?Mv.  These  two  doctrines  of  the  Stoics  are  not 
inconsistent.  The  supposition  that  they  must  be  so  led  to  Brucker's  criticism 
in  Historia  Critica  de  Zenone,  of  Lipsius'  account  in  Manuduetio  ad  Stoicam 
Philosophiam.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  there  may  be  a  ruling  principle  and 
an  anticipative  notion  in  the  mind,  and  yet  that  all  om*  notions  may  arise  fi-om 
sense ;  only  it  is  not  true,  as  Locke  has  shown,  that  all  our  ideas  come  fi'om 
sense,  for  many  of  them  are  derived  ii-om  the  inward  sense  or  reflection.  The 
Stoics  represented  the  notions  as  "  obscuras  et  inchoatas,  adumbratas,  complica- 
tas,  involutas"  (Cicero,  De  Legibus ;  see  Lipsius,  Mamul.  ii.  11).  In  Epictetus, 
vii.  22,  we  have  examples  of  the  Stoic  pre-conception  as  that  good  is  advantage- 
ous, eligible,  and  to  be  pursued,  and  that  justice  is  fair  and  becoming. 

V.  The  Epicukeans  are  usually  represented  as  denying  everything  innate. 
But  it  is  quite  certain  that  they  held  by  a  TTp6?.T)fi.c,  as  implied  in  all  intelligence, 
investigation,  and  discussion :  "  id  est,  anteccistam  animo  rei  quandam  infor- 
mationem,  sine  qua  nee  intelligi  quidquam,  nee  quaeri,  nee  disputari  potest." 
This  prolepsis  gives  a  prenotion  of  the  gods  which  is  innate,  and  has  in  its  behalf 
universal  consent :  "  Cum  enim  non  institute  aliquo,  aut  more,  aut  lege,  sit 
opinio  constituta,  maneatque  ad  unum  omnium  firma  consensio ;  intelligi  necesse 
est,  esse  decs,  quoniam  Insitas  coram,  vel  potius  innatas,  cognitiones  habemus. 


86  CIIABACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,     [part  i. 

De  qvio  autem  omnium  natura  conseutit,  id  vcrum  esse  necesse  est"  (Cicero,  De 
Hat.  Dcoruin,  i.  17). 

YI.  Lord  Herbert  of  Ceerbury  is  an  original  but  liy  no  means  a  clear 
tliinker ;  he  is  certainly  not  a  graceful  writer.  In  his  treatise  De  Veritate,  he 
maintains  that  truth  is  discoverable  in  consequence  of  there  being  an  analogy  of 
thiu"-s  to  our  minds.  He  finds  in  the  soul  four  faculties :— 1.  Natural  Instinct, — 
"sive  scnsus  qui  ex  facultatibus  communes  notitias  confirmantibus  oritur." 

2.  The  Internal  Sense.  3.  The  External  Sense ;  and  4.  The  Discursive  Power. 
AA'hatever  is  not  revealed  through  these  faculties  cannot  be  known  by  man,  but 
he  insists  that  what  is  known  is  in  the  things,  and  that  man  can  know  realities. 
Under  Natural  Instinct  he  treats  of  Common  Notions,  Koival  Ivvotai,  and  speci- 
fies six  marks : — 1.  Theii-  priority,  the  natural  instinct  being  the  first  to  act,  and 
the  discursive  faculty  the  last.     2.  Their  independence,  that  is,  of  eveiy  other. 

3.  Their  universality,  giving  universal  consent.  4.  Their  certainty,  which  allows 
not  of  doubt.  5.  Their  necessity,  which  he  explains  as  their  tendency  towards 
the  preservation  of  men  (a  very  unsatisfactory  account  of  this  characteristic). 
6.  The  immediacy  of  their  operation.  His  exposition  of  the  Internal  Sense  is 
not  veiy  clear ;  but  under  it  he  treats  of  the  conscience  which  he  describes  as 
"  sensus  communis  sensuum  internorum,"  and  as  discovering  what  is  good  and 
evil  and  what  ought  to  be  done.  Passing  over  his  account  of  the  External 
Senses  and  the  Discui'sive  Power,  we  may  mention  his  Common  Notions  about 
religion.  They  are,  that  there  is  a  Supreme  Deity ;  that  He  ought  to  be  wor- 
shipped ;  that  vii*tue  with  piety  should  be  main  part  of  the  worship ;  that  there 
is  in  the  mind  a  horror  of  crime  which  should  lead  to  repentance ;  and  that 
there  are  rewards  and  punishments  in  another  life.  Under  this  system  I  would 
remark:  a  that  Herbert  does  not  see  that  Natural  Instinct  runs  through  all 
the  faculties ;  5,  he  does  not  accurately  distinguish  between  Natural  Instinct  and 
the  Common  Notions,  nor  see  that  in  the  formation  of  the  latter  there  is  an 
exercise  of  the  Discursive  Power ;  c,  while  he  has  caught  a  vague  view  of  the 
more  important  characteristics  of  our  intuitions,  he  has  not  apprehended  them 
closely,  and  ho  fails  in  the  application  of  his  own  tests. 

VH.  The  English  Divines  of  the  Seyenteenth  Centukt,  both  High 
Church  and  Puiitan,  often  discuss  the  question  as  between  Aristotle  and  Plato 
(not  as  between  Locke  and  Descartes),  as  to  the  nature  of  ideas,  and  throw  out 
views  in  which  there  is  much  truth,  but  also  much  confusion.  They  held  that 
there  is  something  in  the  mind,  and  born  with  it,  which  is  deeper  than  sense 
and  experience.  Thus  Dr.  Jackson,  in  A  Treatise  concerning  the  Original  of 
Unlclief,  Misbelief.,  or  Mis-j^ersuasion  concerning  the  Veritie,  Unitie,  and  Attri- 
butes of  the  Deity  (1625),  inquires  what  truth  there  is  in  the  Platonic  theory  of 
ideas  and  reminiscence,  and  cannot  just  agree  with  those  who  maintain  that 
there  are  notions  in  the  soul  like  letters  written  with  the  juice  of  onions,  and 
ready  to  come  forth  on  certain  applications  being  made  to  them.  His  doctrine 
is  "  The  soul  of  man  being  created  after  the  image  of  God  (in  whom  are  all 
thin<Ts),  though  of  an  indivisilile  and  immortal  nature,  hath  notwithstanding 
such  a  virtual  similitude  of  all  things  as  the  eye  hath  of  colours,  the  ear  of 
sounds,  or  the  common  sense  of  these  and  other  sensibles,  woven  by  the  finger 
of  God  in  its  essential  constitution  or  intimate  indissoluble  temper."    The  Cam- 


BOOK  II.]      CBITICAL  BEVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  -87 

bridge  Platonists  all  maintained  tliat  there  Tvas  something  in  the  soul  prior  to 
Bense,  but  requiring  sense  to  call  it  forth,  and  were  fond  of  describing  this  aa 
"  connate"  or  "  connatural."  H.  More  states  the  question,  "  Whether  the  soul  of 
man  be  a  rasct  tabula,  or  whether  she  have  innate  notions  and  ideas  in  herself?" 
He  answers,  "  For  so  it  is  that  she  having  first  occasion  of  thinking  from  external 
objects,  it  has  so  imposed  on  some  men's  judgments,  that  they  have  conceited 
that  the  soul  has  no  knowledge  nor  notion,  but  what  is  in  a  passive  way  im- 
pressed or  delineated  upon  her  from  the  objects  of  sense  ;  they  not  warily 
enough  distinguishing  between  extrinsical  occasions  and  the  adequate  or  piln- 
cipal  causes  of  things."  "  Nor  wiU  that  prove  anything  to  the  purpose  when 
it  shall  be  alleged,  that  this  notion  is  not  so  connatural  and  essential  to  the 
soul  because  she  framed  it  from  some  occasions  from  without."  In  modification 
he  allows,  "  I  do  not  mean  that  there  is  a  certain  number  of  ideas  as  glaring  and 
shining  to  the  animadversive  faculty,  like  so  many  torches  or  stars  in  the  firma- 
ment to  our  outward  sight,  or  that  there  are  any  figures  that  take  their  distinct 
places,  and  are  legibly  wiit  there  like  the  red  letters  or  astronomical  characters 
in  an  almanac"  (Antidote  against  Atheism).  Culverwel  says,  "Ycu  must  not, 
nor  cannot  think  that  nature's  law  is  confined  and  contracted  within  the  com- 
pass of  two  or  three  common  notions,  but  reason,  as  with  one  foot  it  fixes  a 
centre,  so  with  the  other  it  measures  and  spreads  out  a  circumference ;  it  draws 
several  conclusions,  which  do  aU  meet  and  crowd  into  these  first  and  central 
principles.  As  in  those  noble  mathematical  sciences  there  are  not  only  some 
first  ahijiiara  which  are  granted  as  soon  as  they  are  asked,  if  not  before,  but  there 
are  also  whole  heaps  of  fii-m  and  immovable  demonstrations  that  are  built  upon 
them."  He  talks  of  a  "  connate"  notion  of  a  Deity,  but  then  he  shows  that  there 
is  a  process  of  the  understanding  in  it,  "  so  that  no  other  innate  light  but  only 
the  power  of  knovring  and  reasoning  is  the  '  candle  of  the  Lord' "  {Light  of 
Nature,  pp.  82,  127,  128.  Edition  by  Brown  and  Caii-ns).  Cudworth  stands 
up  for  an  immutable  morality  discovered  by  reason,  and  distinguishes,  like 
More,  between  occasion  and  cause  (see  infra,  Part  m.  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  vi). 
The  Puritans  generally  appealed  to  fii'st  principles,  intellectual  and  moral.  Thus 
Baxter  says  {Reasons  of  the  Christian  Religion,  p.  1),  "  And  if  I  could  not  answer 
a  sceptic  who  denied  the  certainty  of  my  judgment  by  sensation  and  reflexive 
intuition  [how  near  to  Locke],  yet  nature  would  not  suffer  me  to  doubt."  "  By 
my  actions  I  know  that  I  am ;  and  that  I  am  a  sentient,  intelligent,  thinking, 
willing,  and  operative  being."  "  It  is  true  that  there  is  in  the  nature  of  man's 
soul  a  certain  aptitude  to  understand  certain  truths  as  soon  as  they  are  revealed, 
that  is,  as  soon  as  the  very  natura  rerum  is  observed.  And  it  is  true  that  this 
disposition  is  l^rought  to  actual  knowledge  as  soon  as  the  mind  comes  to  the 
actual  consideration  of  things.  But  it  is  not  true  that  there  is  any  actual  knowl- 
edge of  any  principle  bom  in  man."  It  is  wrong  to  "  make  it  consist  in  cer- 
tain axioms  (as  some  say)  bom  in  us,  or  written  in  om*  hearts  from  our  biith  (as 
others  say),  dispositively  there."  These  distinctions  do  not  exhaust  the  subject, 
but  they  contain  impgrtant  truth ;  and  if  Locke  had  attended  to  them  he  would 
Lave  been  saved  from  extravagant  statements.  Owen,  in  his  Dissertation  on, 
Divine  Justice,  appeals,  in  proving  the  existence  of  justice,  1.  to  the  "  common 
opinion"  and  innate  conceptions  of  all ;  2.  to  the  consciences  of  all  mankind ;  3. 
to  the  pul)lic  consent  of  all  nations.  Howe,  in  his  Living  Temple,  appeals  to 
"the  relics  of  common  notions,  the  lively  points  of  some  undcfaced  truth,  the 
fair  ideas  of  things,  the  yet  legible  precepts  that  relate  to  practice." 


88  CUABACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 

Vin  Descartes  seized  on  a  lai-gc  body  of  im1)ortant  trutli  in  regard  to  innate 
ideas.  1.  He  sa-«"  tliat  tbcy  were  of  tlie  nature  of  powers  or  faculties  ready  to 
operate,  but  needing  to  be  called  fortli.  "  Lorsque  je  dis  que  quclque  idee  est 
nee  avec  nous,  ou  qu'clle  est  naliuvllemeut  empreinte  en  nos  ames,  je  n'cntends 
pas  qu'elle  se  presente  toujours  a  notre  pensee,  car  aiusi  11  n'y  en  aurait  aucune ; 
mais  j'entends  seulement  que  nous  avons  en  nous-memes  la  faculte  de  la  pro- 
duire"  {Trois  Ohjec.  lUp.  Ohj.  10).  See  other  passages  to  the  same  eifect,  quoted 
by  Mr.  Veitch,  Trans,  of  Med.  etc.,  pp.  207-208.  2.  He  had  glimpses,  but  con- 
fused, of  the  test  of  self-evidence,  which  he  unhappily  represents  as  clearness. 
"  Toutes  Ics  choses  que  nous  concevons  clairement  et  distinctement  sont  vraiea 
de  la  facon  dont  nous  les  roncevons"  {Med.  Ahrege).  He  thus  explains  clearnesa 
and  distinctness  :  "  J'appelle  claire  celle  qui  est  presente  et  manifeste  a  un 
esprit  attentif ;  de  meme  que  nous  disons  voir  clairement  les  objets,  lorsqu'etant 
presents  a  nos  yeus  ils  agissent  assez  fort  sur  eux,  et  qu'ils  sont  disposes  a  les 
regarder ;  et  distincte,  celle  qui  est  tellement  precise  et  difterente  de  toutes  les 
autres,  qu'elle  ne  comprend  en  sol  que  ce  qui  paroit  manifestement  a  celui  qui 
la  considere  comme  il  faut"  {Prln.  Phil.  i.  45).  3.  He  sees  that  they  assume  the 
shape  of  common  notions.  4.  These  are  represented  as  eternal  truths  of  intelli- 
gence :  "  Lorsque  nous  pensons  qu'ou  ne  sam-oit  fane  qrelque  chose  de  rien, 
nous  ne  croyons  point  que  cetts  proposition  soit  une  choo^  qui  esiste  ou  la  joro- 
priete  de  quelque  chose,  mais  nous  la  prenons  pour  une  certaine  verite  etemelle 
qui  a  son  siege  en  notre  jjensee,  et  que  I'on  nomme  une  notion  commune  ou  une 
maxime ;  tout  de  meme  quand  on  dit  qu'il  est  impossible  qu'ime  meme  chose 
soit  et  ne  soit  pas  en  meme  temps,  que  ce  qui  a  ete  fait  ne  pent  n'etre  pas  fait, 
que  celui  Cjui  pense  ne  pent  manquer  d'etre  ou  d'exister  pendant  qu'il  pense,  et 
quantite  d'autres  semblables,  ce  sont  seulement  des  verites,  et  non  pas  des  choses 
qui  soient  hors  de  notre  pensee,  et  il  y  en  a  un  si  grand  nombre  de  telles  qu'il 
seroit  malaise  de  les  denombrer"  {Frin.  Phil.  i.  49).  5.  He  discovers  that  they 
come  forth  into  consciousness ;  hence  he  calls  them  innate  ideas,  and  defines 
idea :  "  Cette  forme  de  chacune  de  nos  pensees  par  la  perception  immediate  de 
laquelle  nous  avons  connaissance  de  ces  memes  pensees"  {Rq'>.  anx  Deux  Oljed.) 
But  there  is  confusion  throughout  in  the  view  which  he  takes,  and  in  his  mode  of 
expression.  1.  He  gives  no  account  of  the  relation  between  the  faculty  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  idea  or  common  notion  on  the  other.  He  does  not  see  that 
abstraction  and  generalization  are  necessary  in  order  to  reach  the  abstract  and 
general  idea.  2.  The  test  of  self-evidence  is  not  well  expressed ;  in  this  respect 
he  is  inferior  to  Locke.  The  clearness  and  distinctness  of  an  idea  is,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  a  very  ambiguous  phrase,  for  in  some  senses  of  the  word  we  may  have 
a  very  clear  idea  of  an  imaginary  oliject,  or  a  distinct  idea  of  a  falsehood. 
3.  That  there  is  confusion  in  this  view  is  evident  from  the  circumstance  that  he 
often  states  that  these  truths  are  not  equally  admitted  by  all,  because  they  are 
opposed  to  the  prejudices  of  some.  He  speaks  of  persons  "  qui  ont  imprime  de 
longue  main  des  o^Dinions  en  lem-  creance,  qui  etaient  contraires  a  quelques-unes 
de  ces  verites"  {Prin.  i.  50),  4.  He  expects  far  too  much  from  a  bare  contem- 
plation of  the  principles  or  causes  of  things  :  "  Mais  I'ordre  que  j'ai  tenu  en  ceci 
a  ete  tel :  premierement,  j'ai  tache  de  trouver  en  general  les  principes  ou  pre- 
mieres causes  de  tout  ce  qui  est  ou  qui  pent  etre  dans  le  monde,  sans  rien  con- 
siderer  pour  cet  eflfet  que  Dieu  seul  qui  I'a  cree,  ni  les  tirer  d'ailleurs  que 
de  certaines  semences  de  verites  qui  sont  naturellement  en  nos  ames.  Apres 
cela,   j'ai  examine   quels   etaient  les  premiers  et    les  plus    ordinaires  eflfets 


BOOK  II.]      CBITICAL  BEVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  89 

qu'on  pouvait  deduire  de  ces  causes ;  et  il  me  semble  que  par  Ki  j'ai  trouve 
des  cieux,  des  astres,  una  terre,  et  meme  sur  la  terre  de  I'eau,  de  Fair,  etc." 
{Meth.  Part  Yi.) 

IX.  Locke  lias,  in  his  account  of  the  Human  Understanding,  both  a  sensa- 
tional, or  rather  an  experiential  element,  and  a  rational  element.  Eagerly  bent 
on  establishing  his  favourite  position  that  all  our  ideas  are  derived  from  sensa- 
tion and  reflection,  he  has  not  blended  these  elements  very  successfully,  nor  been 
at  much  pains  to  sho^  theii*  consistency.  In  France  they  took  the  sensational 
element  and  overlooked  the  other.  The  Arians  and  Socinians  of  Britain  seized 
eagerly  on  the  rational  element.  In  his  unmeasured  condemnation  of  innate 
ideas  in  the  Fu-st  Book -of  his  Essay,  he  seems  to  deny  truths  which  he  openly 
defends  or  incidentally  allows  in  other  parts  of  the  work.  1.  He  gives  a  high 
place  to  reason.  Thus,  in  replying  to  Stillingfleet,  he  says :  "  Reason,  as  stand- 
ing for  true  and  clear  princijjles,  and  also  as  standing  for  clear  and  fair  deduc- 
tions fi'om  those  princii^les,  I  have  not  wholly  omitted,  as  is  manifest  from  what 
I  have  said  of  self-evident  propositions,  intuitive  knowledge,  and  demonstration, 
in  other  parts  of  my  Essay."  Speaking  of  self-evident  propositions : — "  Whether 
they  come  iii  view  of  the  mind  earlier  or  later,  this  is  true  of  them,  that  they  are 
aU  known  by  their  native  evidence,  are  wholly  independent,  receive  no  light, 
nor  are  capable  of  any  proof  one  from  another"  (see  Rogers'  Essays,  Locke, 
p.  47).  2.  He  gives  an  important  place  to  intuition  in  Book  rv.  3.  He  fixes  on 
self-evidence  as  the  mark  of  intuition.  "  Sometimes  the  mind  perceives  the 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  two  ideas  immediately  by  themselves,  without  the 
intervention  of  any  other,  and  this  I  think  we  may  call  intuitive  knowledge. 
From  this  the  mind  is  at  no  pains  of  proving  or  examiuing,  but  perceives  the 
truth,  as  the  eye  doth  light,  only  by  being  dii-ected  towards  it."  "  This  kind 
of  knowledge  is  the  clearest  and  most  certain  that  human  frailty  is  capable  of. 
This  part  of  knowledge  is  iiTesistible,  and,  like  bright  sunshine,  forces  itself 
immediately  to  be  perceived  as  soon  as  ever  the  mind  turns  its  view  that  way, 
and  leaves  no  room  for  hesitation,  doubt,  or  examination,  but  the  mind  is  pres- 
ently filled  with  the  clear  light  of  it."  "  He  that  demands  a  greater  certainty 
than  this,  demands  he  knows  not  what,  and  shows  only  that  he  has  a  mind  to  be 
a  sceptic  without  being  able  to  be  so"  (Essay,  Book  rv.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  i. ;  see  also 
Book  rv.  Chap.  xvii.  sect.  iv).  Among  truths  known  intuitively,  "we  have  an 
intuitive  knowledge  of  our  own  existence"  (Book  iv.  Chap.  iii.  sect,  xxi.) ;  and 
"  man  knows  by  an  intuitive  certainty  that  bare  nothing  can  no  more  produce 
any  real  being  than  it  can  be  equal  to  two  right-angles"  (Book  rv.  Chap.  x.  sect. 
iii).  4.  He  is  obliged  at  times  to  appeal  to  necessity  of  coucej)tion.  Thus,  in 
arguing  with  Stillingfleet : — "  The  idea  of  beginning  to  be  is  necessarily  con- 
nected with  the  idea  of  some  operation ;  and  the  idea  of  operation  with  the  idea 
of  something  operating,  which  we  call  a  cause."  "The  idea  of  a  right-angled 
triangle  necessarily  canies  with  it  an  equality  of  its  angles  to  two  right  ones ; 
nor  can  we  conceive  this  relation,  this  connexion  of  these  two  ideas,  to  be  pos- 
sibly mutable"  (Essay,  Book  iv.  Chap.  iii.  sect.  xxix).  He  speaks  of  certain  and 
universal  knowledr  as  having  "  necessary  connexion,"  "  necessary  co-existence," 
"necessary  dependence"  (see  Webb  on  the  Intellect uallsjn  of  Loclce,  p.  iii).  5.  He 
sees  that  intuitive  general  maxims  are  all  derived  from  particulars.  This  follows 
from  his  general  maxim  that  the  mind  begins  with  particulars.  "  The  ideas 
first  in  the  mind,  'tis  evident,  are  those  of  particular  things,  from  which  by  slow 


\)d  CnABACTERS   OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  I, 

degrees  tlie  understanding  proceeds  to  some  few  general  ones"  (Book  iv.  Chap, 
vii.  sect.  ix).  "  In  particuliirs  our  knowledge  begins,  and  so  spreads  itself  by 
degrees  to  generals"  (Book  rv.  Cbap.  vii.  sect.  xi).  Following  out  this  view,  he 
speaks  of  the  general  propositions  being  "not  innate,  l)ut  collected  from  a  pre- 
ceding acquaintance  and  reflection  on  particular  instances.  These,  when  ob- 
serving men  have  made  them,  unobserving  men  when  they  are  proposed  to  them 
cannot  refuse  their  assent  to"  (Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  xxi).  6.  He  saw  clearly — 
what  Kant  never  saw — that  tlie  mind  rises  to  universal  propositions  by  looking 
at  things,  and  the  nature  of  things.  ''  Had  they  examined  the  ways  whereby 
men  come  to  the  knowledge  of  many  universal  truths,  they  would  have  found 
them  to  result  in  the  minds  of  men  fi'om  the  being  of  things  themselves  when 
duly  considered,  and  that  they  Vi^ere  discovered  l)y  the  application  of  those 
faculties  which  were  fitted  by  nature  to  receive  and  judge  of  them  when  duly 
employed  about  them"  (Book  i.  Chap.  iv.  sect.  xxv). 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  Locke  has  omitted  or  controverted  certain  great 
truths.  1.  He  imagines  that  when  he  has  disproved  innate  ideas  in  the  sense  of 
phantasms,  and  general  notions,  he  has  therefore  disproved  them  in  every  sense. 
2.  He  does  not  see  that  the  intuition  which  he  acknowledges  must  have  a  rule, 
law,  or  jjiinciple,  which  may  be  described  as  innate,  inasmuch  as  it  is  in  the 
mind  prior  to  all  exiaerience.  3.  Misled  by  his  theory  of  the  mind  looking  at 
ideas  and  not  at  things,  he  represents  intuition  as  concerned  solely  vntli  the 
comparison  of  ideas.  This  was  noticed  by  the  Bishop  [of  Derry,  Dr.  King, 
author  of  the  Orir/i/i  of  Evil],  in  a  letter  dated  Johnstoun,  October  26,  1697, 
to  Locke's  Mend,  Mr.  Molyneux : — "To  me  it  seems  that,  according  to  Mr, 
Locke,  I  cannot  be  said  to  know  anything  except  there  be  two  ideas  in  my  mind, 
and  all  the  knowledge  I  have  must  be  concerning  the  relation  these  two  ideas 
have  to  one  another,  and  that  I  can  be  certain  of  nothing  else,  which  in  my 
opinion  excludes  all  certainty  of  sense  and  of  single  ideas,  all  certainty  of 
consciousness,  such  as  willing,  conceiving,  believing,  knowing,  etc.,  and,  as  he 
confesses,  all  certainty  of  feith,  and,  lastly,  all  certainty  of  remembrance  of  which 
I  have  foi-merly  demonstrated  as  soon  as  I  have  forgot  or  do  not  actually  think 
of  the  demonstration"  (Letters  hetween  Locke  and  Molyneux),  Reid  refers  to  Locke's 
notion  tliat  belief  or  knowledge  consists  in  a  perception  of  the  agreement  or 
disagreement  of  ideas,  and  characterizes  it  as  "  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  modem 
scepticism."  "  I  say  a  sensation  exists,  and  I  think  I  understand  clearly  what  I 
mean.  But  you  want  to  make  the  thing  clearer,  and  for  that  end  tell  me  that 
there  is  an  agreement  between  the  idea  of  that  sensation  and  the  idea  of  exist- 
ence. To  speak  freely,  this  conveys  to  me  no  light,  but  darkness.  I  can  con- 
ceive no  otherwise  of  it  than  as  an  odd  and  obscure  circumlocution.  I  conclude, 
then,  that  the  belief  which  accompanies  sensation  and  memory  is  a  simple  act 
of  the  mind  which  cannot  be  defined"  {Collected  Writings,  j).  107).  4.  He  does 
not  see  the  peculiar  nature  of  intuitive  maxims.  He  i^erceives  that  they  are  got 
by  generalization — the  great  truth  overlooked  by  the  special  supporters  of  innate 
ideas ;  but  lie  fails  to  observe  that  they  are  the  generalization  of  primitive  cog- 
nitions and  truths,  which  carry  with  them  self-evidence  and  necessity. 

X.  Leibkitz  had  profound,  but  in  some  respects  extravagant,  views  of  neces- 
eai-y  tmths.  1.  He  sees  that  they  have  a  place  in  the  mind,  as  hal)itudes,  dispo- 
sitions, aptitudes,  faculties,     "  Les  connaissances  ou  les  verites,  en  tant  qu'elles 


BOOK  II.]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  91 

sont  en  nous,  quand  meme  on  n'y  pense  point,  sont  des  habitudes  ou  des  dispo- 
sitions" {Xouv.  Essals,  Opera,  p.  213 ;  ed.  Erdmann).  At  the  same  place  he  calls 
them  "  aptitudes."  "  Lorsqu'on  dit  que  les  notions  innees  sont  implicitement  dans 
I'esprit,  cela  doit  signifier  seulement,  qu'il  a  la  faculte  de  les  connaitre"  (p.  212). 

2.  "Leibnitz  has  the  honour  of  first  ex|3licitly  enouncing  the  criterion  of 
necessity,  and  Kant  of  first  fully  applying  it  to  the  phenomena.  In  nothing  has 
Kant  been  more  successful  than  in  this  under  consideration."  So  says  Hamilton 
(Reid's  Collected  Writings,  p.  323).  The  remark  seems  coiTect ;  but  it  should 
be  added  that  Aristotle,  as  has  been  shown,  expressly  fixed  on  necessity,  while 
others  appealed  to  it ;  even  Locke  speaks  of  knowledge  as  "  irresistible,"  and  of 
"  necessary  relations."  Leibnitz  draws  more  decidedly  than  had  been  done  be- 
fore the  distinction  between  necessaiy  and  eternal  truths  and  truths  of  exj)eri- 
ence  (p.  209).  8.  Because  of  the  natural  faculty  and  "  preformation,"  the  ideas 
tend  to  come  into  cons^iousness  in  a  special  form.  "  II  y  a  toujours  une  dispo- 
sition particuliere  a  Taction,  et  ii,  une  action  plutot  qu'a  I'autre"  (p.  223).  He 
illustrates  this  by  supposing  that  in  the  marble  there  might  be  veins  which 
marked  out  a  particular  figure,  say  that  of  Hercules,  preferably  to  others. 
"  Mais  s'il  y  avoit  des  yeines  dans  la  pierre,  qui  marquassent  la  figure  d'Hercule 
preferablement  a  d'autres  figures,  cette  i)ierre  y  seroit  plus  determinee,  et 
Hcrcule  y  seroit  comme  inne  en  quelcjue  fagon"  (j).  196).  4.  He  represents  the 
intellect  itself  as  a  source  of  ideas.  To  the  maxim  "  NiMl  est  in  intellectu  quod 
non  fuerit  in  sensu,^''  he  adds,  "  nisi  ipse  intellects s.^''  The  expression  is  not 
very  explicit.  He  explains  it : — "  Or  I'ame  reuferme  I'etre,  la  substance,  I'un, 
le  meme,  la  cause,  la  perception,  le  raisonnement,  et  quantite  d'autres  notions." 
But  he  is  sm-ely  wi'ong  in  identifying  these  with  Locke's  ideas  of  reflection 
(p.  223).  5,  He  sees  that  there  is  need  of  more  than  spontaneity,  that  there  la 
need  of  some  intellectual  process,  in  order  to  discover  the  general  truth.  "  Les 
maximes  innees  ne  paroisseut  que  jjar  I'attentiou  qu'on  leur  donne"  (p.  213). 
But — 1.  He  sejjarates  necessaiy  truth  from  things,  and,  making  them  altogether 
mental,  he  led  the  way  to  that  subjective  tendency  which  was  carried  so  far  by 
Kant.  2.  He  does  not  distinguish  between  the  necessaiy  principle  as  a  dispo- 
sition unconsciously  in  the  mind  and  a  general  maxim  discovered  by  a  process. 

3.  He  does  not  see  that  the  general  maxim  is  reached  by  generalizing  the  indi- 
vidual necessary  tniths. 

XI.  LoKD  Shaftesbuky  protests  against  Locke's  rejection  of  eveiything  in- 
nate, and  falls  back  on  the  word  "connatural,"  derived  from  Culverwel. 
"  Innate  is  a  word  he  (Locke)  poorly  plays  upon  ;  the  right  word,  though  less 
used,  is  eonnaturaV  {Letters  to  a  Toung  Gentleman).  He  shows  that  there  are 
many  qualities  natural  to  man,  and  dwells  fondly  on  the  sense  of  beauty  and 
the  moral  sense.  He  supplied  the  Scottish  School  with  the  phrase  common, 
sense,  which  he  represents  as  being  the  same  with  "  natural  knowledge"  and 
"  fundamental  reason."  "  Whatever  materials  or  principles  of  this  kind  we 
may  possibly  bring  with  us,  whatever  good  faculties,  senses,  or  anticipating 
sensations  and  imaginations  may  be  of  nature's  growth,  and  arise  properly  of 
themselves  without  our  art,  promotion,  or  assistance,  the  general  idea  which  is 
formed  of  all  this  management,  and  the  clear  notion  we  attain  of  what  is  pref- 
erable and  principal  in  all  these  subjects  of  choice  and  estimation  will  not,  as  I 
imagine,  by  any  person  be  mistaken  for  innate.     Use,  practice,  and  culture 


92  CHARACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,   [part  i. 

must  precocle  the  understandiug  aucT  wit  of  sucli  an  advanced  size  and  growth 
as  this''  {}[i)tceUnnks,\i\.2:  in  Characteristics). 

XII.  Bcffier's  principal  ti'eatise  is  on  P/'ewi^?'e.*F<3'?'i7t's.  He  saw  : — 1.  That 
there  was  in  the  mind  an  original  law,  which  he  characterizes  as  a  "  disposition." 
2.  He  speaks  of  it  as  coming  forth  in  common  and  uniform  judgments  among 
all  men,  or  the  greater  part.  3.  He  sees  that  it  does  not  thus  come  forth  till 
mature  age,  and  till  men  come  to  the  use  of  reason.  These  three  points  are  all 
brought  out  in  the  following  sentence  : — "  J'entcnds  ici  par  le  Sens  Commtjn,  la 
disposition  que  la  nature  a  niise  dans  tons  les  hommes,  ou  manifestement  dans 
la  plupart  d'entre  eux,  pour  leur  faire  porter,  ciuand  ils  ont  atteint  I'usage  de  la 
raison,  un  jugemeut  commun  et  uniforme  sur  des  objets  diffe rents  du  sentiment 
intime  de  leur  propre  perception :  jugement  qui  n'est  point  la  consequence 
d'aucun  piincipe  anterieur"  (P.  i.  c.  v).  4.  He  specifies  several  important 
practical  characteristics  of  first  truths.  "  (1.)  Le  premier  de  ces  caracteres  est 
qu'elles  soient  si  claires,  que  quand  ou  entreprend  de  les  prouver  ou  de  les 
attaquer,  on  ne  le  puisse  faire  que  par  des  propositions  cj^ui  manifestement  ne 
sont  ni  plus  claires  ni  plus  certaines.  (2.)  D'etre  si  universellement  re?ues  parmi 
les  hommes  en  tout  temps,  en  tous  lieux,  et  par  toutes  sortes  d'esj)rits,  que  ceux 
qui  les  attaquent  se  trouveut,  dans  le  genre  humaiu,  etre  manifestement  moins 
d'un  contre  cent,  ou  meme  centre  mille.  (3.)  D'etre  si  fortement  imprimees 
dans  nous,  que  nous  y  conformions  notre  conduite,  malgre  les  rafiinements  de 
ceux  qui  imaginent  des  opinions  contraires,  et  qui  eux-memes  agissent  conforme- 
ment,  non  a  leurs  opinions  imaginees,  mais  aux  premieres  verites  universelle- 
ment re?ues"  (P.  i.  c.  vii).  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  (1)  he  fixed 
explicitly  on  theii*  deepfer  qualities  of  self-evidence  and  necessity,  nor  (2)  showed 
the  relation  between  theii*  individual  and  general  form. 

XIII.  Francis  Hutcheson,  the  founder  of  the  Scottish  School,  discusses  the 
question  whether  metaphysical  axioms  are  innate.  He  denies  that  they  are 
innate  in  the  sense  of  theii'  being  knovni  or  observed  fi'om  our  birth,  and  main- 
tains that  in  their  general  form  they  are  not  reached  tiU  after  many  comparisons 
of  singular  ideas.  He  stands  up  for  self-evident  axioms,  in  which  the  mind 
perceives  at  once  the  agreement  and  disagi-eement  of  subject  and  predicate,  and 
represents  them  as  being  eternal  and  immutable  (see  his  MetapTiysics). 

XIV.  Reid's  great  merit  lies  in  establishing  certain  principles  of  Common 
Sense,  such  as  those  of  substance  and  quality,  cause  arid  efiect,  and  moral  good, 
as  against  the  scepticism  of  Hume.  He  does  not  profess  to  give  an  exhaustive 
account  of  these  principles,  nor  to  enter  minutely  into  theii*  distinctive  Character 
and  mode  of  operation,  but  in  conducting  his  proper  work  he  has  mentioned 
nearly  all  their  distinctive  qualities.  1.  He  represents  them  as  being  in  the 
nature  of  man ;  thus  he  speaks  of  "  an  original  piinciple  of  our  constitution" 
(p.  121),  and  calls  them  "original  and  natiu-al  judgments,'^  as  "part  of  that 
furniture  which  Nature  hath  given  to  the  human  understanding,"  as  "  the 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty"  and  "  a  part  of  our  constitution"  Q).  209,  Collected 
Writings;  Hamilton's  edition).  2.  He  represents  the  mind  as  having  a  sense 
or  preception  of  them  ;  and  on  the  one  hand  avoids  the  error  of  Locke,  who 
regards  intuition  as  concerned  solely  with  a  comparison  of  ideas,  and  he  does  not 


BOOK  II.]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  93 

on  the  other  hand  fall  into  that  of  Kant,  who  looks  on  them  as  mere  forms  in 
the  mind.  3.  He  follows  Locke  in  fixing  on  self-evidence  as  a  decisive  test. 
"  We  ascribe  to  reason  two  offices,  or  two  degrees.  The  first  is  to  judge  of 
things  self-evident ;  the  second,  to  di-aw  conclusions  that  are  not  self-evident 
from  those  that  are.  The  first  of  these  is  the  province,  and  the  sole  i^roviuce  of 
common  sense,  and  therefore  it  coincides  with- reason  in  its  whole  extent,  and  is 
only  another  name  for  one  branch  or  one  degi-ee  of  reason"  (p.  425 ;  see  also 
p.  422).  4.  He  specifies  necessity  as  a  mark.  "  By  the  constitution  of  our 
nature  we  are  under  a  necessity  of  assent  to  them"  (p.  130).  He  speaks  of  a 
certain  truth  "  being  a  necessary  truth,  and  therefore  no  object  of  sense."  "  It 
is  not  that  things  which  begin  to  exist  commonly  have  a  cause,  or  even  that  they 
always  in  fact  have  a  cause,  but  that  they  must  have  a  cause,  and  cannot  begin 
to  exist  without  a  cause"  Q).  455 ;  see  also  pp.  456,  521).  Yet  he  has  not  a 
steady  apprehension  of  necessity  as  a  test,  for  he  says  :— -"  I  resolve  for  my  own 
part  always  to  pay  a  great  regard  to  the  dictates  of  common  sense,  and  not  to 
depart  from  them  without  absolute  necessity"  (p.  112),  as  if  necessity  did  not 
preclude  our  departing  from  them.  5.  He  characterizes  them  as  universal ;  thus 
he  appeals  to  the  "  universal  consent  of  mankind ;  not  of  philosophers  only,  but 
of  the  rude  and  unlearned  vulgar"  (p.  456). 

His  positive  errors  on  this  subject  are  not  many,  but  he  has  not  seen  the  full 
truth,  and  he  has  fallen  into  several  oversights.  1.  By  neglecting  a  rigid  use  of 
tests,  he  has  described  some  truths  as  first  principles  into  which  there  enters  an 
experiential  element.  Thus,  for  example,  "  that  there  is  life  and  intelligence  in 
our  fellow-men,"  "  that  certain  featm-es  of  the  countenance,  sounds  of  the  voice, 
and  gestures  of  the  body,  indicate  certain  thoughts  and  dispositions  of  the  mind" 
(p.  449),  and  that  "  there  is  a  certain  regard  due  to  hmnan  testimony  in  matters 
of  facts,  and  even  to  human  authority  in  matters  of  opinion"  Qj.  450) ;  and  "  that  in 
the  phenomena  of  Xature,  what  is  to  be  vrill  probably  be  like  to  what  has  been 
in  similar  cii'cumstances"  (p.  451).  A  rigid  application  of  the  tests  of  self-evidence 
and  necessity  would  have  shown  that  these  were  not  first  principles.  2.  He  is 
not  careful  to  distinguish  between  the  Spontaneous  and  Reflex  use  of  common 
sense.  He  uses  legitimately  the  argument  from  common  sense  against  Hume, 
but  in  philosophy  we  must  use  the  reflex  principle  carefully  expressed,  whereas 
Reid  often  appeals  in  a  loose  way  to  the  spontaneous  conviction.  And  here  I 
may  take  the  opportunity  of  stating  my  conviction  (and  this  notwithstanding  Sir 
W.  Hamilton's  defence  of  it  in  2s'ote  A)  that  the  phrase  "common  sense"  is  an 
unfortunate,  because  a  loose  and  ambiguous  one.  Common  sense  (l^esides  its  use 
by  Aristotle,  see  Hamilton's  Note  A)  has  two  meanings  in  ordinary  discourse. 
It  may  signify,^/?;-.?)',  that  unacquii-ed,  imbought,  imtaught  sagacity,  which  certain 
men  have  by  nature,  and  which  other  men  never  could  acquire,  even  though  they 
were  sulijected  to  the  process  mentioned  by  Solomon  (Pro v.  xxvii.  22),  and 
brayed  in  a  mortar.  Or  it  might  signify  the  communis  sensus,  or  the  perceptions 
and  judgments  which  are  common  to  all  men.  It  is  only  ia  this  latter  sense  that 
the  argument  from  common  sense  is  a  philosophic  one ;  that  is,  only  on  the 
condition  that  the  appeal  be  to  convictions  which  are  in  all  men ;  and  further, 
that  there  has  been  a  systematic  exposition  of  them.  Reid  did  make  a  most 
legitimate  use  of  the  argument  from  common  sense,  appealing  to  convictions  in 
all  men,  and  bringing  out  to  view,  and  expressing  with  greater  or  less  accuracy, 
the  principles  involved  in  these  convictions.    But  then  he  has  also  taken  advan- 


U  CHAEACTERS  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  l 

tago  of  the  first  meaning  of  tlie  plirasc ;  he  represents  the  strength  of  these 
original  judgments  as  fjood  sense  (p.  209)  ;  he  appeals  from  philosophy  to  common 
sense ;  and  in  order  to  counteract  the  impression  left  by  the  high  intellectual 
abilities  of  Hume,  he  showed  that  those  who  opposed  Hume  were  not  such  fools 
after  all,  but  had  the  good  sense  and  shrewduess  of  mankind  on  their  side  (see 
p.  137,  etc.,  with  foot-notes  of  Hamilton).  This  has  led  many  to  suppose  that 
the  argument  of  Reid  and  Beattie  is  altogether  an  address  to  the  vulgar.  In 
this  way,  what  seemed  at  the  time  a  veiy  dexterous  use  of  a  two-edged  sword  has 
turned  against  those  who  employed  it,  and  injustice  has  been  done  to  the  Scottish 
School  of  philosophers,  who  do  make  a  proper  use  of  the  argument  fi-om  common 
sense.  .3.  He  does  not  see  how  to  reconcile  the  doctiine  (of  Locke)  that  all 
maxims  appear  in  consciousness  as  particulars,  with  his  own  doctrine  of  there 
being  principles  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  and  there  coming  forth  in 
general  propositions. 

XV.  IvANT  has,  next  to  Locke,  exercised  the  greatest  influence  on  modem 
speculation.  As  a  general  rule,  the  one  dwells  upon  and  magnifies  the  truths 
which  the  other  overlooks.  Kant  is  a  reaction  against  Locke.  He  cariies  out, 
in  his  o-wn  logical  way,  certain  principles  which  had  grown  up  in  the  schools  of 
Descartes,  Leibnitz,  and  Wolf.  1.  He  sees  more  clearly,  and  explains  more 
fully  than  ever  had  been  done  before,  that  the  a  jjriori  principles  are  in  the  mind 
in  the  character  of  forms,  or  rules,  prior  to  their  being  called  forth  or  exercised. 
Thus,  speaking  of  our  intuition  of  space,  he  says  it  must  be  akeady  a  priori  in  the 
mind,  that  is,  before  any  perception  of  objects.  "  Die  Form  derselben  muss  zu 
ilmen  insgesammt  im  Gem  lithe  a  2>riori  bereit  liegen  und  daher  abgesondert  von 
aller  Empfindung  konnen  betrachtet  werden"  (  Werlc,  Bd.  ii.  p.  32 ;  ed.  Rosen- 
kranz).  The  mind  has  not  only  Intuitions  of  Space  and  Time  to  impose  on 
phenomena  or  j)resentations,  it  has  categories  of  Quantity,  Quality,  Relation, 
Modality,  to  impose  on  its  cognitions ;  and  Ideas  of  Substance,  Totality  of 
Phenomena,  and  Deity,  to  impose  on  the  judgments  reached  by  the  categories. 
2.  He  maintains  that  the  forms  of  the  sensibility  and  the  categories  of  the  under- 
standing have  all  a  reference  to  objects  of  experience,  real  or  possible ;  this,  in 
fact,  is  their  use ;  without  this  they  would  be  meaningless.  The  ideas  of  i^uro 
reason  do,  however,  refer  to  the  comparisons  of  the  understanding,  and  not  to 
objects,  and  fruitless  speculation  arises  from  supposing  that  they  refer  to  objects ; 
and  there  may  also  be  an  undue  use  of  the  forms  of  sense  and  the  categoiies  of 
the  understanding,  but  in  themselves  they  ref^r  to  objects  of  possible  experience 
{Eritik  d.  r.  V.  Trans.  Dial.)  3.  He  proposes  in  his  great  work,  the  Kritih  of 
Pure  lieason,  to  give  an  inventory,  in  systematic  order,  of  the  a  priori  principles 
in  the  mind :  "  Denn  es  ist  nichts  als  das  Inventarium  aller  unsercr  Besitze 
durch  reine  Vemunft,  systematisch  georduet"  (Vorrede  zu  erst.  Auf.)  He  seeks 
for  an  organou,  which  would  be  a  compendium  of  the  principles  according  to 
which  a  priori  cognitions  would  be  oljtained :  "  Ein  Organon  der  reinen  Ver- 
nunft  wilrde  ein  Inbegriff  derjenigen  Principien  seyn,  nach  denen  alle  reine 
Erkentnisse  a  priori  konnen  erworben  und  wirklich  zu  Stande  gebracht  werden" 
(Einleit).  4.  He  uses  systematically  the  test  of  Necessity  and  Universality, 
meaning  by  Universality  the  Universality  of  the  Truth  (see  supira,  p.  44,  foot- 
note). 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  fallen  into  the  grossest  misapprehensions  re- 


BOOK  iL]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  95 

garding  the  nature  of  tlie  a  priori  principles  of  reason.  1,  He  maintains  that 
the  mind  can  have  no  intuition  of  tilings.  All  tliat  it  can  know  are  mere  pre- 
Bentatious  or  phenomena.  It  is  all  true  that  the  Forms  of  Sense  and  the 
Categories  relate  to  objects  of  possible  exjDerience,  but  then  experience  does 
not  give  us  a  knowledge  of  things.  "  Es  sind  demnach  die  Gegenstande  der 
Erfahrung  niemals  an  sich  selbst."  Speaking  even  of  self-consciousness  he  says, 
it  does  not  know  self  as  it  exists :  "  Und  selbst  ist  die  innere  und  sinnliche 
Anschauung  unseres  Gemiiths  (als  Gegenstandes  des  Bewusstseyns)  .  .  .  auch 
rdcht  das  eigentliche  Selbst,  so  wie  es  an  sich  existirt"  (Bd.  ii.  p.  389).  He  thus 
separates  the  intuitions  of  the  mind  altogether  fi-om  things.  2.  He  makes  our 
a  priori  Intuitions  imiDose  on  phenomena  the  forms  of  Space  and  Time,  which 
have  no  existence  out  of  the  mind.  The  categories  are  fi-ameworks  for  biudiug 
conceptions  into  judgments.  The  ideas  of  pure  reason  reduce  the  judgments  to 
unity,  but  have  no  reference  to  objects;  and  if  we  suppose  them  to  have,  we  are 
landed  in  illusion  and  contradictions.  By  this  system  he  makes  much  ideal 
which  we  are  naturally  led  to  regard  as  real,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for 
Fichte,  who  made  the  whole  ideal.  3.  His  Method  of  discovering  the  a  priori 
principles  of  the  mind  is  not  the  Inductive,  but  the  Critical.  Reason  is  called 
to  undertake  the  task  of  self-exaciination,  which  may  secui'e  its  righteous  claims, 
not  in  aa  arbitrary  way,  but  according  to  its  own  eternal  and  unchangeable 
laws.  "Eine  AuSbrderung  an  die  Vemimft,  das  beschwerlichste  aller  ihrer 
Geschafte,  namlich  das  der  Selbsterkenntniss  aufs  IS'eue  zu  tibemehmen  und 
einen  Gerichtshof  einzusetzen,  der  sie  bei  ihren  gerechten  Anspruchen  sichere, 
dagegen  aber  alls  grundlose  Anmaassungen  nicht  durch  Machtsprilche  sondem 
nach  ihren  ewigen  und  unwandelbaren  Gesetzen"  (Yor.  zu  erst.  Auf.)  Reason 
was  thus  set  on  criticising  itself  according  to  laws  of  its  own,  and  a  succession 
of  speculators  set  out  each  with  what  he  alleged  to  be  the  laws  of  reason,  but 
no  two  of  them  agreed  as  to  what  the  laws  of  reason  were,  or  what  the  standard 
by  which  to  test  them,  and  conclusions  were  reached  which  were  evidently 
most  irrational. 

XVI.  DcreALD  Stewart  delighted  to  look  on  our  intuitions  imder  the  aspect 
of  "  Fundamental  Laws  of  Human  Belief"  {Elern.  Vol.  ii.  Chap.  i).  1.  He  sees 
that  they  are  of  the  nature  of  laws  in  the  mind.  3.  He  sees  that  they  are  natural, 
original,  and  fundamental.  3.  He  sees  that  they  are  invqlved  in  the  faculties. 
Hence  he  calls  them  "  elements  of  reason"  {Elem.  Vol.  n.  p.  49 ;  Ham.  edit.)  ;  he  ' 
would  identify  them  with  the  exercise  of  our  reasoning  powers,  and  speaks  of 
them  as  "  component  elements,"  vrithout  which  the  faculty  of  reasoning  is  incon- 
ceivable and  impossible  (p.  39).  It  may  be  added  that  while  he  never  formally 
appeals  to  necessity,  he  is  obliged  to  use  it  incidentally.  Thus  "  eveiy  man  ir, 
impressed  with  an  irresistible  conviction  that  all  his  sensations,  thoughts,  and 
volitions  belong  to  one  and  the  same  being"  {Elem.  Vol.  i.  p.  47)  ;  and  "  we  are 
impressed  with  an  irresistible  conviction  of  our  personal  identity"  {Essays,  p.  59). 
Speaking  of  causes,  in  the  metaphysical  meaning  of  the  word,  he  says,  the  "  word 
cause  expresses  something  which  is  supposed  to  be  necessarily  connected  with 
the  change"  {?]lem.  Vol.  i.  p.  97).  In  looking  on  them  as  "  fundamental  lavrs," 
and  in  avoiding  the  ambiguity  of  the  phrase  "  common  sense,"  he  has  gone 
beyond  Keld,  but  otherwise  he  has  not  thrown  much  light  on  them.  He  is  in 
jn-eat  confusion  from  not  discoverinj:'  how  it  is  tliat  "the  elements  of  reason" 


96  CHARAGTEBS  OF  OUB  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

may  become  general  maxims,  axioms,  or  iDrinciples;  and  liis  wliole  view  of 
mathematical  axioms  is  erroneous  (see  Elcm.  Vol.  ii). 

XVII.  Dr.  TnoMAs  Brown  lias  demonstrated,  with  great  ingenuity,  that  our 
belief  in  the  invariableness  of  cause  and  effect  cannot  be  had  fi"om  experience 
{Cause  and  Effect.,  Part  iii.  sect.  iii).  He  has  also  shown  that  the  belief  in  our 
personal  identity  is  intuitive  {Led.  13).  When  he  comes  to  our  intuitions,  he 
speaks  of  them  as  "  principles  of  thought ;"  as  "  jarimary  universal  intuitions  of 
direct  belief;"  as  "  being  felt  intuitively,  universally,  immediately,  irresistibly ;" 
as  "  an  internal,  never-ceasing  voice  from  the  Creator  and  Preserver  of  our  being ;" 
as  "omnipotent,  like  their  Author;"  and  "such  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
doubt  them"  {Led.  13).  These  are  fine  expressions,  but  his  view  of  them  is 
meagre  after  all,  and  a  retrogi'ession  from  the  Scottish  School.  He  makes  no 
inquiry  into  their  nature,  laws,  or  tests. 

X^T;II.  Sir  Wixliam:  Hamilton's  Note  yl,  appended  to  his  edition  of  Reid's 
Colleded  Writings,  is  the  most  important  contribution  made  in  this  centuiy  to 
the  science  of  first  truths.  1.  He  has  there  specified  nearly  every  important 
character  of  our  intuitive  convictions,  and  attached  to  them  an  appropriate 
nomenclature.  3.  He  has  shown  that  the  argument  fi'om  common  sense  is  one 
strictly  scientific  and  eminently  philosophic.  3.  He  has  with  unsurpassed  erudi- 
tion brought  testimonies  in  behalf  of  the  principles  of  common  sense  from  the 
writings  of  the  eminent  thinkers  of  all  ages  and  countries.  But  on  the  other 
hsnd : — 1.  He  fails  to  di-aw  the  distinction  between  common  sense  as  an  aggre- 
gate of  laws  in  the  mind,  as  convictions  in  consciousness,  and  as  generalized 
maxims.  Thus  the  confusion  of  the  spontaneous  cognition  and  its  generalized 
foiia  appears  in  such  passages  as  the  following : — "  The  primitive  cognitions 
seem  to  leap  ready  from  the  womb  of  reason,  like  Pallas  from  the  head  of  5\v^\- 
ter ;  sometimes  the  mind  places  them  at  the  commencement  of  its  operations  iu 
order  to  have  a  point  of  su^sport  and  a  fixed  basis  without  which  the  operations 
would  be  impossible ;  sometimes  they  fonu  in  a  certain  sort  the  crowning,  the 
consummation  of  all  the  intellectual  operations"  {Metajihysics,  Lect.  38).  2.  He 
does  not  properly  appreciate  the  circumstance  that  intuitive  convictions  all  look 
to  singulars,  and  that  there  is  need  of  induction  to  reach  the  general  truth. 
He  supposes  that  the  general  truth  is  revealed  at  once  to  consciousness.  "Phi- 
"losophy  is  the  development  and  application  of  the  constitutive  and  nonnal 
truths  which  consciousness  immediately  reveals."  "  Philosojihy  is  thus  wholly 
dependent  on  consciousness"  (Reid's  Collected  Writings,  p.  746).  It  is  true  that 
philosophy  is  dependent  on  consciousness,  but  it  is  dependent  also  on  abstrac- 
tion and  generalization.  He  calls  ultimate,  primary,  and  universal  i^rinciples, 
facts  of  consciousness  {Met.  Lect.  15).  3.  His  method  is  not  the  Inductive,  but 
that  of  Critical  Analysis  introduced  by  Kant  {Met.  Lect.  39).  He  fails  to  observe 
that  the  mind  in  intuition  looks  at  objects.  He  makes  the  mind's  conviction  in 
regard  to  such  objects  as  sjiace,  substance,  cause,  and  infinity,  to  be  impoteucies, 
and  their  laws  to  be  laws  of  thought  and  not  of  things  (Append,  to  Discuss,  on 
Pldl.)     The  error  of  such  views  will  come  out  as  we  advance. 

XIX.  jM.  Cousm  has  given,  throughout  all  his  philosophical  works,  clear  and 
beautiful  expositions  of  the  elements  of  reason.  1.  It  is  a  favourite  doctrine 
that  reason  looks  at  truths,  eternal,  universal,  and  absolute ;  truths,  not  to  the 


BOOK  II.]      CRITICAL  REVIEW  OF  OPINIONS.  97 

individual  or  the  race,  but  to  all  intelligences.  3.  He  uses,  most  successfully,  the 
tests  of  necessity  and  universality,  in  order  to  distinguish  the  truths  of  reason 
from  other  traths.  3.  He  has  distinguished  between  the  spontaneous  and  re- 
flective form  of  the  truths  of  reasons  (see  supra,  p.  52).  4.  He  has  shown  that 
primitive  truths  are  all  at  fii-st  individual.  "  C'est  un  fait  qu'il  ne  faut  pas 
oublier,  et  qu'on  oublie  beaucoup  trop  souvent,  que  nos  jugements  sont  d'abord 
des  jugements  particuliers  et  detennines,  et  que  c'est  sous  cette  forme  d'un 
jugemeut  particulier  et  determine  que  font  leur  premiere  apparition  toutes  les 
verites  imiverselles  et  necessaires"  (Ser.  ii.  t.  iii.  \eq.  19;  see  also  Ser.  i.  t.  i. 
progr. ;  t.  ii.  progr.  leg.  ii.-iv.  xi).  But  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  given  an 
exaggerated  account  of  the  power  of  human  reason,  and  has  not  seen  that  induc- 
tion is  required  in  order  to  the  discoveiy  of  necessaiy  truth  in  its  general  form. 
1.  He  uses  unhappy  and  unguarded  language  in  speaking  of  reason.  His  favourite 
epithet  as  applied  to  it  is  "  impersonal ;"  language  which  has  a  correct  meaning 
inasmuch  as  the  truth  is  not  to  the  person  but  to  all  intelligences,  but  is  often 
so  employed  as,  without  his  intending  it,  to  come  veiy  close  to  those  pantheistic 
systems  which  identify  the  Divine  and  human  reason  (see  Ser  ii.  leg.  v).  3.  His 
reduction  of  the  ideas  of  reason  to  three  is  full  of  confusion.  The  first  idea  is 
supposed  to  be  unity,  substance,  cause,  perfect,  infinite,  eternal ;  the  second, 
multiple,  quality,  eflect,  imperfect,  finite,  boimded ;  and  the  thii-d,  the  relation 
of  the  other  two.  It  is  to  confound  the  things  which  manifestly  differ,  to  make 
tmity,  cause,  good,  infinite,  identical.  The  business  of  the  metaphysician  should 
be  to  observe  each  of  these  carefully,  and  bring  out  their  peculiarities  and  their 
differences.  3.  He  does  not  see  how  it  is  that  the  general  maxim  is  formed  out 
of  the  particulars.  He  says  that  abstraction  "  saisit  immediatement  ce  que  le 
premier  objet  soumis  ii  son  observation  renferme  de  general"  (Ser.  i.  t.  i.  leg  xi). 
He  does  not  see  that  in  order  to  the  formation  of  the  general  law  there  is  need 
of  a  process,  often  delicate  and  laborious,  of  observation,  abstraction,  and  gene- 
ralization. 

XX.  Dr.  Whewell  has  done  great  service  at  once  to  the  physical  sciences 
and  to  metaphysics,  by  showing,  in  his  History  of  Scientrfic  Ideas, — 1.  That 
the  former  proceed  upon  and  imi)ly  piinciples  not  got  from  experience ;  that 
geometry  and  arithmetic  depend  on  first  truths  regarding  space,  time,  and  num- 
ber ;  and  mechanical  science  on  intuitions  regarding  force,  matter,  etc.  2.  He 
has  exhibited  these  principles  in  instructive  fonns,  announcing  them  in  their 
deeper  and  wider  character  under  the  designation  of  "  fimdamental  ideas,  and 
then  presenting  them  under  the  name  of  "  conceptions"  in  the  more  specific 
shapes  in  which  they  become  available  in  the  particular  sciences :  thus,  in 
mechanical  science  the  fundamental  idea  of  cause  becomes  the  conception  of 
force.  But  then  he  has  injm'ed  his  great  work  : — 1.  By  following  the  Kantian 
doctrine  of  forms,  and  supposing  that  the  mental  ideas  "  impose"  and  "  superin- 
duce" on  the  objects  something  not  in  the  objects,  whereas  they  merely  enable 
us  to  arrive  at  what  is  in  the  objects.  3.  He  also  faUs  to  show  that  the  ideas 
or  maxims  in  the  general  form  in  which  alone  they  are  available  in  science,  are 
got  by  induction.  3.  The  phraseology  which  he  employs  is  unfortunate,  it  is 
"fundamental  ideas"  and  " conceptions."  The  word  " idea"  has  been  used  in 
so  many  different  senses  by  different  writers,  by  Plato,  Descartes,  Locke,  Kant, 
and  Hegel,  that  it  is  perhaps  expedient  to  abandon  it  altogether  in  strict  pMlo- 
7 


98  CH ABAC  TEES  OF  OUR  INTUITIONS,    [part  i. 

sopliic  -nriting ;  it  is  certainly  not  expedient  to  nse  it,  as  Wliewell  does,  in  a 
new  application.  The  TTord  "  conception"  stands  in  classical  English  both  for 
the  phantasm,  or  image,  and  the  logical  notion — certain  later  metaphysicians 
would  restrict  it  to  the  logical  notion ;  and  there  is  no  propriety  in  using  it  to 
signify  an  a  p)'iori  law.  4.  He  has  damaged  the  general  acceptance  of  his 
principles,  which  seem  to  me  to  be  as  true  as  they  are  often  profound,  by  mak- 
ing a  number  of  truths  a  prioi-i  which  are  evidently  got  from  experience  :  thus 
he  makes  the  law  of  action  and  re-action,  and  the  laws  of  motion  generally, 
Belf-evident  and  necessary. 


PART  SECOND. 


PARTICULAR    EXAMINATION    OF  THE    INTUITIONS. 


(99) 


BOOK  I. 

PEIMITIVE    COGNITIONS. 

CHAPTER   I. 

* 

BODY  AND    SPIRIT. 

SECT.  I.— THE  MIND  BEGINS  ITS  INTELLIGENT   ACTS  WITH  KNOWLEDGE- 
THE  SIMPLE  COGNITIVE  POWERS. 

It  is  a  favourite  position  in  the  views  expounded  in  tliis  treatise, 
that  the  mind  begins  its  acts  of  intelligence  with  knowledge.  This 
is  not  the  common  representation.  According  to  a  very  ancient 
doctrine  the  mind  has,  prior  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  a 
stock  of  ideas  out  of  itself,  or  in  itself,  at  which  it  looks,  and  its 
primary  exercises  consist  in  contemplating  or  in  forming  these 
ideas.  This  view,  with  no  pretensions  to  precision  in  the  state- 
ment of  it,  was  a  prevalent  one  in  ancient  Greece,  in  the  scholastic 
ages,  and  in  the  earlier  stages  of  modern  philosophy.  It  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  view  which  was  liabitually  entertained  by  Descartes  and 
Locke.  In  later  times,  the  mind  was  supposed  to  commence  with 
"  impressions"  of  some  kind.  This  view  may  be  regarded  as  intro- 
duced formally  into  pliilosophy  by  Hume,  who  opens  his  Treatise 
of  Human  Nature  by  declaring  that  all  the  perceptions  of  the 
mind  are  impressions  and  ideas  ;  that  impressions  come  first,  and 
that  ideas  are  the  faint  images  of  them.  This  view  has  evidently 
a  materialistic  tendency.  Literally,  an  impression  can  be  pro- 
duced only  on  a  material  substance,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  determine 
precisely  wliat  is  meant  by  the  phrase  when  it  is  applied  to  a  state 
of  the  conscious  mind.  This  impression  theory  is  the  one  adopted 
by  the  French  Sensational  School,  and  by  the  physiologists  of  this 

ilOl) 


102  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  n. 

coimtiy.  In  Germany  the  influence  exercised  by  Kant's  Krilih  of 
Pure  Eeascn  lias  made  the  general  account  to  be  that  the  mind 
starts  with  presentations,  and  not  with  things,  with  phenomena  in 
the  sense  of  appearances,  which  "  phenomena  "  are  but  modifications 
of  Hume's  "  impressions,"  and  of  the  "  ideas  "  of  the  ancients.  Now 
it  appears  to  me  that  all  these  accounts,  consciousness  being  wit- 
ness, are  imperfect,  and  by  their  defects  erroneous.  The  mind  is 
not  conscious  of  these  impressions  preceding  the  knowledge  which 
it  has  immediately  of  self,  and  the  objects  falling  under  the  notice 
of  the  senses.  Nor  can  it  be  legitimately  shown  how  the  mind 
can  ever  rise  from  ideas,  impressions,  phenomena,  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  things.  The  followers  of  Locke  have  always  felt  the 
difficulty  of  showing  how  the  mind  from  mere  ideas  could  reach 
external  realities.  Hume  designedly  represented  the  original  exer- 
cises of  the  mind  as  being  mere  impressions,  in  order  to  undermine 
the  very  foundations  of  knowledge.  Though  Kant  acknowledged  a 
reality  beneath  the  presentations,  beyond  the  phenomena,  those 
who  followed  out  his  views  found  the  reality  disappearing  more 
and  more,  till  at  length  it  vanished  altogether,  leaving  only  a  con- 
catenated series  of  mental  forms. 

There  is  no  effectual  or  consistent  way  of  avoiding  these  conse- 
quences but  by  falling  back  on  the  natural  system,  and  maintaining 
that  the  mind  in  its  intelligent  acts  starts  with  knowledge.  But 
let  not  the  statement  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean  that  the 
mind  commences  with  abstract  knowledge,  or  general  knowledge, 
or  indeed  with  systematized  knowledge  of  any  description.  It 
acquires  first  a  knowledge  of  individual  things,  as  they  are  pre- 
sented to  it  and  to  its  knowing  faculties,  and  it  is  out  of  this  that 
all  its  arranged  knowledge  is  formed  by  a  subsequent  exercise  of 
the  understanding.  From  tlie  concrete  the  mind  fashions  the 
abstract,  by  separating  in  thought  a  part  from  the  whole,  a  quality 
from  the  object.  Starting  with  the  particular,  the  mind  reaches 
the  general  by  observing  the  points  of  agreement.  From  premises 
involving  knowledge,  it  can  arrive  at  other  propositions  also  con- 
taining knowledge.  It  seems  clear  to  me,  that  if  the  mind  had 
not  knowledge  in  the  foundation,  it  never  could  have  knowledge 
in  the   superstructure   reared  ;    but  finding  knowledge  in  its  first 


BOOK  I.]  BODY  AND  SPIRIT.  103 

intelligent  exercises,  it  can  thence,  by  the  processes  of  abstraction, 
generalization,  and  reasoning,  reach  furtlier  and  higher  knowledge. 

The  mind  is  endowed  with  at  least  two  simple  cognitive  powers, 
• — sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  Both  are  cognitive  in 
their  nature,  and  look  on  and  reveal  to  us  existing  things  ;  the  one, 
material  objects  presented  to  us  in  our  bodily  frame  and  beyond 
it,  and  the  other,  self  in  a  j^articular  state  or  exercise.  It  is 
altogether  inadequate  language  to  represent  these  faculties  as 
giving  us  an  idea,  or  an  impression,  or  an  apprehension,  or  a 
notion,  or  a  conception,  or  a  belief,  or  looking  on  unknown  appear- 
ances :  they  give  us  knowledge  of  objects  under  aspects  presented 
to  us.  ISTo  other  language  is  equal  to  express  tlie  full  mental 
action  of  which  we  are  conscious. 

In  this  Book  it  is  my  aim  to  seek  out,  to  analyze,  and  expose  to 
the  view  the  convictions  that  are  involved  in  the  exercise  of  these 
two  powers.  I  shall  begin  with  our  cognitions  in  their  more  con- 
crete form,  and  then  dwell  specially  on  the  cognitions  discovered 
by  abstraction  to  be  involved  in  these. 

SECT.  ir.-OUR    INTUITIVE    COGNITIONS    OP    BODY. 

"We  are  following  the  plainest  dictates  of  consciousness,  we  avoid 
a  thousand  difficulties,  and  we  get  a  solid  ground  on  which  to  rest 
and  to  build,  when  we  maintain  that  the  mind  in  its  first  exercises 
acquires  knowledge ;  not  indeed  scientific  or  arranged,  not  of 
qualities  of  objects  and  classes  of  objects,  but  still  knowledge — the 
knowledge  of  things  presenting  themselves,  and  as  they  present 
themselves ;  which  knowledge,  individual  and  concrete,  is  the 
foundation  of  all  other  knowledge,  abstract,  general,  and  deductive. 
In  particular,  the  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  attain  a  knowledge 
,  of  body  or  of  material  objects. 

It  is  through  the  bodily  organism  that  the  intelligence  of  man 
attains  its  knowledge  of  all  material  objects  beyond.  Tiiis  is  true 
of  the  infant  mind ;  it  is  true  also  of  the  mature  mind.  We  may 
assert  something  more  than  this  regarding  the  organism.  It  is 
not  only  the  medium  tlirough  wliich  we  know  all  bodily  objects 
beyond   itself,  it  is  itself  an  object   primarily  known  ;    nay,  I  am 


104  PBIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

inclined  to  tliink  that,  along  ■with  the  objects  immediately  affecting 
it,  it  is  the  only  object  originally  known.  Intuitively  man  seems 
to  know  nothing  beyond  liis  own  organism,  and  objects  directly 
affecting  it ;  in  all  further  knowledge  there  is  a  process  of  inference 
proceeding  on  a  gathered  experience.  This  theory  seems  to  me  to 
explain  all  the  facts,  and  it  delivers  ns  from  many  perplexities. 

Let  ns  go  over  the  senses  one  by  one,  with  a  view  of  determin- 
ing what  seems  to  be  the  original  information  supplied  by  each. 
In  the  sense  of  smell,  the  objects  immediately  perceived  are  the 
nostrils  as  affected ;  it  is  only  by  experience  that  we  know  that 
there  is  an  object  beyond,  from  which  the  smell  proceeds,  and  it  is 
only  by  science  that  we  know  that  odorous  particles  have  pro- 
ceeded from  that  object.  In  hearing,  our  primary  perceptions 
seem  to  be  of  the  ear  as  affected  ;  that  there  is  a  sounding  body  we 
learn  by  further  observation,  and  that  there  are  vibrations  between 
it  and  the  car  we  are  told  by  scientific  research.  In  taste,  it  is 
originally  the  palate  as  affected  by  what  we  feel  by.  another  sense 
to  be  a  tangible  body,  which  body  science  tells  us  must  be  in  a 
liquid  state.  In  touch  proper,  there  is  a  sensation  of  a  particular 
part  of  the  frame  as  affected  by  we  know  not  what,  but  wliich  we 
may  discover  by  experiential  observation.  It  is  the  same  with  all 
the  impressions  we  have  by  the  sense  of  temperature,  the  sense  of 
titillation,  the  sense  of  shuddering,  the  sense  of  flesh-creeping,  the 
sense  of  lightness  or  of  weight,  and  the  like  organic  affections, 
usually  but  improperly  attributed  to  touch.  In  regard  to  all  these 
senses,  it  seems  highly  probable  tliat  our  original  and  primitive 
perceptions  are  simply  of  the  organism  as  affected  by  something 
unknown — so  far  as  intuition  is  concerned.  But  there  are  other  two 
senses  which  furnish,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  a  new  and  further 
kind  of  information.  The  sense  of  touch,  when  the  phrase  is  used  in 
a  loose  sense,  is  a  complex  one,  embracing  a  considerable  number 
and  variety  of  senses,  which  have  not  been  scientifically  classified, 
and  which,  perhaps,  cannot  be  so  till  we  have  a  more  thorough 
physiology  of  the  nerves.  Certain  it  is  that  there  is  a  locomotive 
energy  and  a  muscular  sense  entirely  different  from  feeling,  or  such 
affections  as  those  of  heat  and  cold.  The  soul  of  man  instinctively 
wills  to  move  the  arm ;   an  action  is  produced  in  a  motor  nerve, 


BOOK  L]  BODY.  105 

which  sets  in  motion  a  muscle,  with  probably  an  attached  set  of 
bones,  and  the  intimation  of  such  a  movement  having  taken  place 
is  convej-ed  to  the  brain  by  a  sensor  nerve.  As  the  result  of  this 
complex  physiological  process,  we  come  to  know  that  there  is 
something  beyond  our  organism  :  we  know  an  object  out  of  our 
organism  liindering  the  movement  of  the  organ  and  resisting  our 
energy.'  It  is  more  difficult  to  determine  what  is  the  original 
perception  by  sight.  It  must  certainly  be  of  a  coloured  surface 
affecting  the  felt  organism.  In  the  famous  case  operated  on  by 
Cheselden,  a  boy  born  blind  had  his  eyes  couched,  and  "  when  he 
first  saw,  he  was  so  far  from  making  any  judgment  about  distances 
that  he  thought  all  objects  whatever  touched  his  eyes  (as  he  ex- 
pressed it)  as  what  he  felt  did  his  skin."  Dr.  Nunneley  reports  the 
case  of  an  intelligent  boy  of  nine  years  of  age,  who  had  been 
afflicted  with  congenital  cataract  of  both  eyes,  but  whose  right  eye 
was  restored  :  "  Of  distance  he  had  not  the  least  conception.  He 
said  everything  touched  his  eyes,  and  walked  most  carefully  about, 
with  his  hands  held  out  before  him,  to  prevent  things  hurting  his 
eyes  by  touching  them."'  I  think  it  probable  that  the  coloured 
surface  perceived  as  affecting  the  living  organism,  is  seen  as  in  the 
direction  of  the  felt  and  localized  sentient  organ,  ncitlicr  beiiiud  it, 
nor  at  the  side,  but  at  what  distance  we  know  not  till  other  senses 

>  The  following  is  the  account  given  by  Muller  {Physiology  trans,  bj  Baly,  p.  1080)  :— 
"First,  the  child  governs  the  movement  of  its  limbs,  and  thus  perceives  that  they  aro 
instruments  subject  to  the  use  and  government  of  its  internal  '  self,'  while  the  resistance 
which  it  meets  with  around  is  not  subject  to  its  will,  and  therefore  gives  it  the  idea 
of  an  absolute  exterior.  Secondly,  the  child  will  perceive  a  difference  in  the  sensations 
produced  according  as  two  parts  of  its  own  body  touch  each  other,  or  as  one  part  of  its 
body  only  meets  with  resistance  from  without.  In  the  first  instance,  where  one  arm,  for 
example,  touches  the  other,  the  resistance  is  offered  by  a  part  of  the  child's  own  body, 
and  the  limb  thus  giving  the  resistance  becomes  the  subject  of  sensation  as  well  as  the 
other.  The  two  limbs  are  in  this  case  external  objects  of  perception,  and  percipient  at 
the  same  time.  In  the  second  instance,  the  resisting  body  will  be  represented  to  the 
mind  as  something  external  and  foreign  to  the  living  body,  and  not  subject  to  the  inter- 
nal •  self.'  Thus  will  arise  in  the  mind  of  the  child  the  idea  of  a  resistance  which  one  part 
of  its  own  body  can  offer  to  other  parts  of  its  body,  and  at  the  same  time  the  idea  of  a 
resistance  offered  to  its  body  by  an  absolute  '  exterior.'  In  this  way  is  gained  the  idea  of 
an  external  woild  as  the  cause  of  sensations." 

2  Oiv  the  Organs  of  Vision,  p.  32.  The  Cheselden  case  is  reported  in  Phil.  Trans.  172S. 
Berkeley,  Stewart,  and  Brown  hold  that  colour  without  extension  is  the  proper  object  of 
sight.  Uamilton  {Metaphijsics,  Lect.  27)  seems  to  me  to  demonstrate  that  a  perception  of 
colours,  and  consequculy  of  the  difference  of  colours,  necessarily  involves  the  perception  of 
a  discriminating  line,  and  that  a  line  and  figure  are  modifications  of  extension,  so  that  "  a 
perception  of  extension  is  necessarily  given  in  the  perception  of  colours." 


106  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [paet  ir. 

and  a  gathered  experience  come  to  our  aid.     Such  seems  to  be  our 
original  knowledge,  received  through  the  various  senses  as  inlets. 

But  we  are  not  to  understand  that  tlie  mind  receives  sensations 
and  information  only  from  one  sense  at  a  time.  In  order  to  have 
a  full  view  of  the  actual  state  of  things,  we  must  remember  that 
man,  at  every  instant  of  his  waking  existence,  is  getting  organic 
feelings  and  perceptions  from  a  numl)cr  of  i^cnsitive  sources  ;  pos- 
sibly at  one  and  the  same  time  from  the  sense  of  heat,  from  the 
sense  of  taste  in  the  mouth,  from  the  sense  of  hearing,  from  the 
sense  of  sight — say  of  a  portion  of  our  own  body  and  of  the  walls 
of  the  apartment  in  wliich  wc  sit,  and  from  the  muscular  sense- 
say  of  the  chair  on  which  we  sit,  or  the  floor  on  which  we  stand. 
Our  whole  conscious  state  at  any  given  time  is  thus  a  very  com- 
plex, or  rather,  a  concrete  one.  There  is  in  it  at  all  times  a  sense 
of  tlie  living  body  as  extended,  and,  I  may  add,  as  ours.  This  is 
a  sense  which  hmifen  beings,  infant  and  mature,  carry  with  them 
every  instant  of  their  waking  existence,  perhaps  in  a  low  state 
even  in  their  times  of  sleep.  "  This  consciousness  of  our  own 
corporeal  existence  is  the  standard  by  wliich  we  estimate  in  our 
sense  of  touch  the  extension  of  all  resisting  bodies.'"  Along  with 
this  there  will  always  be  in  our  waking  moments  a  sense  of  some- 
thing extra-organic  but  affecting  the  organism,  such  as  the  surface 
before  the  eye,  or  the  object  which  supports  us.  But  the  vividness 
of  the  impression  made,  or  some  decisive  act  of  the  will  in  order 
to  accomplish  a  desired  end,  will  at  times  centre  the  mind's  re- 
gards in  a  special  manner  on  some  one  of  the  objects  made  known 
by  tlie  senses.  Thus,  a  violent  pain  in  an  organ  will  absorb  the 
whole  mental  energy  on  itself ;  or  a  vivid  hue  will  draw  out  the 
mind  towards  the  colour  ;  or  in  order  to  some  purpose  we  may  fix 
our  regards  on  the  shape  of  the  object.  By  these  concentrations  of 
intelligence  we  obtain  a  more  special  acquaintance  with  the  nature  of 
the  objects  presenting  themselves.  It  is  tlius  only  that  the  special 
senses  fulfill  their  full  function,  and  impart  information  abiding  with 
us  beyond  the  moment  when  the  primary  affection  is  produced. 

Such  seems  to  be  our  original  stock  of  knowledge  acquired  by 
sense.      It  is  as  yet  within  very  narrow  limits,  within  our  frames, 

1  Mailer's  rhysiology,  p.  1081. 


BOOK  L]  BODY.  107 

and  a  sphere  immediately  in  contact  with  them/     We  reach  a  more 
extended  knowledge  by  remembering  what  we  have  thus  obtained, 
by  subjecting  it  to  processes  of  abstraction  and  generalization,  and 
drawing  inferences  from  it.     Our  information  is  especially  enlarged 
and   consolidated,  by  combining  the  information  got  from   several 
of  the   senses,  which  are   all  intended    to   assist   each   other.      In 
l^articular,   the    two   intellectual    senses  par  excellence,   sight    and 
the    muscular    sense,  are  fitted    to   aid    each  other  "  and   all    the 
other  senses.    By  siglit  we  know  merely  the  object  as  having  a 
coloured   surface  ;   by  the  muscular  sense  we   may  come  to  know 
that  this  object  with    a    superficies   has   three   dimensions   and  is 
impenetrable, — we  may  know  the   object  to  be   the  same  by  our 
seeing  upon  it  the  hand  which  feels   the  pressure.'^     By  sight  we 
know  not  how  far  the  coloured  surface  is  from  our  organism  ;  by 
inferences  founded    on    gathered    information  from    the    muscular 
sense,  we  come  to  know  how  far  it  is  from  us,  whether  an  inch 
or  many  feet   or  yards.      By  the  muscular   sense  we   know  solid 
objects  only  as  pressing  themselves  immediately  on  our  organism ; 
by  sight  we  see  objects — which  sight  does  not  declare  to  be  solid 
but  which   a   combined   experience    declares  must  be   solid — thou- 
sands   or    millions   of   miles    away.      By  inferences  from    various 
senses  united,  we  know  that  this  taste  is  from  a  certain  kind  of 
food,  that  this  smell  is  from  a  rose  or  lily,  that  this  sound  is  from 
a  human  voice  or  a  musical   instrument.      Thus  our  knowledge, 
commencing  with   the   organism  and   objects   affecting  it,  may  ex- 
tend to  objects  at  a  great  distance,  and  clothe  them  with  qualities 
which  are  not  perceived  as  immediately  belonging  to  them.     We 
know  that  this  blue  surface  seen  indistinctly  is  a  bay  of  the  ocean 

'  "  We  perceive  and  cau  perceive  nothing  but  what  is  relative  to  the  organ"  (Hamil- 
ton, foot-note  to  Reid,  p.  247). 

2  If  the  eve  gives  lines  and  figures  it  must  in  a  sense  give  the  distance  (of  course  not  the 
measured  distance)  of  one  point  or  edge  of  a  figure  from  another.  This  is  a  necessary 
modification  of  the  IJerkeleian  theory  of  vision.  What  the  persons  whose  eyes  were 
couched  felt  as  touching  their  eyes  must  have  been  felt  as  a  surface  like  their  skin. 
Though  they  had  no  intuitive  means  of  determining  the  distance  of  the  seen  surface 
from  their  felt  and  localized  organism,  yet  it  should  be  observed,  they  have  extension  in 
the  original  ocular  perception,  and  a  preparation  for  measuring  the  distance  of  the  seen 
surface  with  the  aid  of  the  muscular  sense,  more  particularly  as  the  hand  moves  over 
the  seen  object  or  moves  from  one  seen  object  to  another.  In  reference  to  a  cognate 
question,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  persons  with  a  newly-imparted  power  of 
vision  would  by  binocular  vision  see  a  solid  as  different  from  a  surface,  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  would  know  it  to  be  a  solid. 


108  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

fifty  miles  off,  and  that  this  brilliant  spark  up  in  the  blue  concave, 
is  a  solid  body,  radiating  light  hundreds  of  millions  of  miles  away. 
Let  us  analyse  what  is  involved  in  this  intuitive  knowledge. 

I.  We  know  the  object  as  existing  or  having  being.  This  is  a 
necessary  conviction,  attached  to,  or  rather  composing  an  essential 
part  of  our  concrete  cognition  of  every  material  object  presented 
to  us,  be  it  of  our  own  frame  or  of  things  external  to  our  frame ; 
whether  this  hard  stone,  or  this  yielding  water,  or  even  this 
vapoury  mist  oi-  fleeting  cloud.  We  look  on  each  of  the  objects 
thus  presented  to  us,  in  our  organism  or  beyond  it,  as  having  an 
existence,  a  being,  a  reality.  Every  one  understands  these  phrases  ; 
they  cannot  be  made  simpler  or  more  intelligible  by  an  explana- 
tion. We  understand  them  because  they  express  a  mental  fact 
which  every  one  has  experienced.  We  may  talk  of  what  we  con- 
template in  sense-perception  being  nothing  but  an  impression, 
an  appearance,  an  idea,  but  we  can  never  be  made  to  give  our 
spontaneous  assent  to  any  such  statements.  However  ingenious 
the  arguments  which  may  be  adduced  in  favour  of  the  objects  of 
our  sense-perceptions  being  mere  illusions,  we  find  after  listening 
to  them,  and  allowing  to  them  all  the  weight  that  is  possible,  that 
we  still  look  upon  bodies  as  realities  next  time  they  present  them- 
selves. The  reason  is,  we  know  them  to  be  realities,  by  a  native 
cognition  which  can  never  be  overcome. 

II.  In  our  primitive  cognitions,  we  know  objects  as  having  an 
existence  independent  of  the  contemplative  mind.  We  know  the 
object  as  separate  from  ourselves.  We  do  not  create  it  when  we 
perceive  it,  nor  does  it  cease  to  exist  because  we  have  ceased  to 
contemplate  it.  Our  intuition  indeed  does  not  say,  as  to  this 
being,  how  or  when  it  came  to  be  there,  nor  whether  nor  in  what 
circumstances  it  may  cease  ;  for  information  on  such  topics  we 
must  go  to  other  quarters.  But  when  tlie  question  is  started,  we 
must  decide  that  this  thing  had  a  being  prior  to  our  perceiving  it 
— unless  indeed  it  so  happened  that  it  was  produced  by  a  power 
capable  of  doing  so  at  the  very  time  our  senses  alighted  on  it ;  and 
that  it  will  continue  to  exist  after  we  have  ceased  to  regard  it — 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  109 

unless  indeed  something  interpose  to  destroy  it.  All  this  is  involved 
in  our  very  cognition  of  the  object,  and  he  who  would  deny  this  is 
setting  aside  our  very  primitive  knowledge,  and  he  who  would  argue 
against  this,  will  never  be  able  to  convince  us  in  fact,  because  he  is 
opposing  a  fundamental  conviction  which  will  work  whenever  the 
object  is  presented/ 

III.  In  our  primitive  cognition  of  body  there  is  involved  a 
knowledge  of  outness  or  externality.'^  We  know  the  object  per- 
ceived, be  it  the  organism  or  the  object  affecting  the  organism,  as 
not  in  the  mind,  as  out  of  the  mind.  In  regard  to  some  of  the 
objects  perceived  by  us  we  may  be  in  doubt  as  to  whether  they 
are  in  the  organism  or  beyond  it,  but  we  are  always  sure  that  they 
are  extra-mental.  Tliis  is  a  conviction  from  which  we  can  never  be 
driven  by  any  power  of  will  or  force  of  circumstances.  It  is  at  the 
foundation  of  the  judgments  to  be  afterwards  specified  as  to  the  dis- 
tinctions between  the  self  and  the  not-self,  the  ego  and  the  non-ego^ 

lY.  In  all  our  knowledge  through  the  senses  we  know  the  object 
as  extended.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  knowledge  in  the 
concrete  is  involved  even  in  such  perceptions  as  those  of  smell, 
taste,  hearing,  and  feeling,  and  the  allied  affections  of  temperature 
and  titillation.  In  all  these  we  intuitively  know  the  organism  as 
out  of  the  mind,  as  extended,  and  as  localized.  At  every  waking 
moment  we  have   sensations  from  more   than  one   sense,  and  we 

»  The  convictions  referred  to  in  these  paragraphs,  set  aside  at  once  the  doctrine  of 
Kant,  that  the  mind,  in  the  intuition  of  sense,  takes  cognizance  of  phenomena  in  the 
sense  of  appearances.  They  should  also  modify  the  doctrine  of  Hamilton.  "  Our  knowl- 
edge of  qualities  or  phenomena  is  necessarily  relative,  for  these  exist  only  as  they  exist 
jn  relation  to  our  faculties"  (Foot-note  to  Reid,  p.  323).  It  is  a  truism  that  we  can 
know  objects  merely  as  our  faculties  enable  us  to  know  them;  but  the  question  is, 
What  is  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  knowlege  which  our  faculties  furnish?  I  admit 
that  whatever  external  objects  we  know,  we  know  in  a  relation  to  us.  But  I  hold  that 
man  and  his  faculties  are  so  constituted  as  to  know  things  (with  being)  exercising  quali- 
ties, and  to  know  qualities  as  existing  separate  from  and  independent  of  our  cognition  of 
them  by  our  faculties. 

2  <<  Perception  involves  in  every  instance  the  notion  of  externality,  or  outness"  (D.  Stew- 
art, Essays,  p.  419). 

3  The  convictions  spoken  of  in  these  paragraphs  set  aside  all  forms  of  idealism  in 
sense-perception.  Berkeley  says,  that  "of  unthinking  things  without  us  their  esse  is 
percipi,  nor  is  it  possible  they  should  have  any  existence  out  of  the  minds  of  thinking 
things  which  perceive  them,"  "When  we  do  our  utmost  to  conceive  the  existence  of 
external  bodies  we  are  all  the  while  only  contemplating  our  own  ideas"  {Principles  of 
Human  Knowledge,  ii.  xxiv.)     I  hold,  that    according  to   our  intuitive  conviction,  the 


no  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

must  know  the  organs  affected  as  out  of  each  other  and  in  differ- 
ent places.'  It  is  acknowledged  that  the  priuiitivc  knowledge  got 
in  this  way  is  very  bare  and  limited,  and  without  tliose  perceived 
relationships  and  distinctions  which  become  associated  with  it  in 
our  future  life.  But  imperfect  though  it  be,  it  must  ever  involve  the 
occupation  of  space.  The  other  two  senses  furnish  more  express 
information,  the  eye  giving  a  coloured  surface  of  a  defined  form,  and 
the  muscular  sense  extension  in  three  dimensions.  It  should  be 
noticed  that  in  our  knowledge  of  extra-organic  objects,  whether  by 
the  eye  or  the  muscular  sense,  we  know  them  as  situated  in  a 
certain  place  in  reference  to  our  organism,  which  we  have  already 
so  far  localized  and  distributed  in  space,  and  which  henceforth  we 
use  as  a  centre  for  direction  and  distance. 

V.  We  know  the  objects  as  affecting  us.  I  have  already  said 
that  we  know  them  as  independent  of  us.  This  is  an  important 
truth.  But  it  is  equally  true  and  equally  important  that  these 
objects  are  made  known  to  us  as  somehow  having  an  influence  on 
us.  The  organic  object  is  capable  of  affecting  our  minds,  and  the 
extra-organic  object  affects  the  organism  which  affects  the  mind. 
Upon  this  cognition  are  founded  certain  judgments  as  to  the  rela- 
tions of  the  objects  known  to  the  knowing  mind.     In  particular, 

VI.  In  certain,  if  not  in  all,  of  our  original  cognitions  through 
the  senses  we  know  the  objects  as  exercising  potency  or  property. 
This  is  denied  in  theory  by  many  who  are  yet  found  to  admit  it 

thing  which  we  perceive  must  exist  before  we  can  perceive  it,  and  that  we  perceive  it  as 
an  extended  tiling  independent  and  out  of  the  contemplative  mind.  Fichle  represents 
the  external  thing  as  a  creation  or  projection  of  the  perceiving  mind.  But  the  mind  ia 
knowing  the  self  as  perceiving,  knows  that  it  is  an  external  thing  that  is  perceived,  and 
cannot  be  made  to  think  otherwise.  Professor  Ferrier  bases  his  fabric  of  demonstrated 
idealism  on  the  proposition,  the  object  of  knowledge  "always  is,  and  must  be,  the  ob- 
iect  with  the  addition  of  one's-self,— object  jAm  subject,— thing,  or  thought,  mecum" 
(Inst,  of  lletaph.  prop.  ii).  If  this  proposition  professes  to  be  a  statement  of  fact,  I 
deny  that  the  fact  of  consciousness  is  properly  stated.  If  it  professes  to  be  a  first  truth, 
I  deny  that  it  ought  to  be  assumed  in  this  particular  form.  No  doubt  we  always  know  self 
at  the  same  time  that  we  know  an  external  object  by  sense-perception,  but  we  know  the 
external  object  as  separate  from  and  independent  of  self.  We  might  as  well  deny  that  we 
know  the  object  at  all,  as  deny  that  we  know  it  to  have  an  existence  distinct  from  self. 

>  Hamilton  says,  "  An  extension  is  apprehended  in  the  apprehension  of  the  reciprocal 
externality  of  all  sensations"  (Appendix  to  Reid,  p.  8S5).  Again,  "  In  the  consciousness 
of  sensations  relatively  localized  and  reciprocally  external,  we  have  a  veritable  apprehen- 
sion and  consequently  an  immediate  perception  of  the  affected  organism,  as  extended, 
divided,  fit^ured,  etc."'  (ibid.  p.  884).  Em.  Saisset,  in  the  article  Sejis,  in  Diet,  des  Sciencei 
Philo3opldqu€s,  dwells  on  the  localization  of  our  sensations  in  their  various  organic  seats. 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  Ill 

inadvertently  wlien  they  tell  us  that  we  can  know  matter  only  by 
its  properties  :  for  what,  I  ask,  are  properties  but  powers  to  act  in 
a  certain  way  ?  But  still  it  is  dogmatically  asserted,  that  whatever 
we  may  know  about  material  objects,  we  can  never  know  that  they 
have  power  ;  we  cannot  see  power,  they  say,  nor  hear  power,  nor 
touch  power.  In  opposition  to  these  confident  assertions,  I  lay 
down  the  very  opposite  dogma,  that  we  cannot  see  body,  or  touch, 
or  even  hear,  or  taste,  or  smell  body,  except  as  affecting  us,  that  is, 
having  a  power  in  reference  to  us.  When  an  extra-organic  body 
resists  our  muscular  energy,*  what  is  it  doing  but  affecting  our 
organism  in  a  certain  way?  The  very  coloured  surface  revealed 
through  sight,  is  known  to  us  as  affecting,  that  is,  having  an  in- 
fluence over,  our  organism.  But  there  is  more  than  this, —  the 
organism  is  known  as  liaving  power  to  affect  the  cognitive  self. 
The  muscular  effort  resisted,  the  visual  organs  impressed  by  the 
coloured  surface,  are  known  as  producing  an  effect  on  the  mind. 
The  organs  affected  in  smell,  in  taste,  in  temperature,  in  hearing, 
in  feeling,  are  all  known  as  rousing  the  mind  into  cognitive 
activity.  It  might  be  further  maintained,  even  in  regard  to  those 
senses  which  do  not  immediately  reveal  anything  extra-organic, 
that  they  seem  to  point  to  some  unknown  cause  of  the  affection 
known  ;  but  it  is  better  to  postpone  the  treatment  of  this  question 
till  it  can  be  fully  discussed.  But  in  regard  to  the  two  senses 
which  reveal  objects  beyond  the  bodily  frame,  and  in  regard  to  all 
the  senses  as  far  as  they  make  known  our  frame  to  us,  it  seems 
clear  to  me,  that  there  is  an  intuitive  conviction  of  potency  wrapped 
up  in  all  our  cognitions. 

But  it  will  be  veliemently  urged  that  it  is  most  preposterous,  to 
assert  that  we  know  all  this  by  the  senses.  Upon  this  I  remark 
that  the  phrase  hy  the  senses  is  ambiguous.  If  by  senses  be 
meant  the  mere  bodily  organism, —  the  eye,  the  ears,  the  nerves, 
and  the  brain, — I  affirm  that  we  know,  and  can  know,  nothing  by 
this  bodily  part,  which  is  a  mere  organ  or  instrument  ;  that  so  far 

1  Locke  says  that  impenetrability,  or,  as  he  prefers  calling  it,  as  having  less  of  a  negative 
meaning,  solidity,  seems  the  "  idea  most  intimately  connected  with  and  essential  to  body, 
80  as  nowhere  else  to  be  found  or  imagined,  but  only  in  matter ;"  and  he  adds,  we  "  find  it 
inseparably  inherent  in  body  wherever  or  however  modified;"  and  in  explaining  this,  he 
says  of  bodies,  that  "  they  do  6y  an  insurmountable  force  hinder  the  approach  of  the  parts 
of  our  hands  that  press  them"  (ZTway,  ii.  iv.  1). 


112  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

from  knowing  potency  or  extension,  we  do  not  know  even  colour, 
or  taste,  or  smell.  But  if  by  the  senses  be  meant  the  mind 
exercised  in  sense-perception,  summoned  into  activity  by  the 
organism,  and  contemplating  cognitively  the  external  world,  then  I 
maintain  that  we  do  know,  and  this  intuitively,  external  objects  as 
influencing  us — that  is,  exercising  powers  in  reference  to  us.  I  ask 
those  who  would  doubt  of  this  doctrine  of  what  it  is  that  they 
suppose  the  mind  to  be  cognizant  in  sense-perception.  If  they 
say  a  mere  sensation  or  impression  in  the  mind,  I  reply  that  this 
is  not  consistent  with  the  revelation  of  consciousness,  which 
announces  plainly  that  what  we  know  is  something  extra-mental. 
If  they  say,  with  Kant,  a  mere  phenomienon  in  the  sense  of 
appearance,  then  I  reply  that  this  too  is  inconsistent  with  con- 
.^ciousness,  which  declares  that  we  know  the  thing.  But  if  we 
know  tlie  thing,  we  must  know  something  about  it.  If  they  say 
^\'C  know  it  as  having  extension  and  form,  I  grasp  at  the  admis- 
sion, and  ask  them  to  consider  how  high  the  knowledge  thus 
allowed,  involving  at  one  and  the  same  time  space,  and  an  object 
occupying  space,  and  so  much  of  space.  Surely  those  who  acknowl- 
edge this  much  may  be  prepared  to  confess  further  that  the  mind 
"which  in  perception  is  capable  of  knowing  an  object  as  occupying 
space,  is  also  capable  of  knowing  the  same  object  as  exercising 
power  in  regard  to  us/     We  have  only  to  examine  the  state  of 

'  "  Cost  la  raison,  et  la  raison  seule,  qui  counait,  et  connait  le  monde  ;  et  elle  ne  le 
connait  d'abord  qu'a  titre  de  cause ;  il  n'est  d'abord  pour  nous  que  la  cause  des  pheno- 
ni^nes  sensitifs  que  uous  ne  pouvons  nous  rapporter  a  nous-memes;  et  nous  ne  recber- 
cherions  pas  cette  cause,  par  consequent  nous  ne  la  trouverions  pas,  si  notre  raison  n'etait 
pourvue  du  principe  de  causalite,  si  nous  pouvions  supposer  qu'un  pbcnomene  pent 
commencer  a  apparaitre  sur  le  theatre  de  la  conscience,  du  temps  ou  de  I'espace,  sans 
qu'il  ait  une  cause.  Done  le  principe  de  causalite,  je  ne  crains  pas  de  le  dire,  est  le  pfere 
du  monde  extcrieur,  loin  qu'il  soit  possible  de  I'eu  tirer,  et  de  le  faire  venir  de  la  sensa- 
tion." So  says  M.  Cousin  in  criticising  Locke  (Deux.  Ser.  torn.  iii.  Ie9.  19).  This  is  not 
far  from  the  truth.  There  is  reason  or  intelligence  involved  in  our  knowledge  of  the 
external  world,  and  there  is  causality  in  this  knowledge.  The  mind  knows  the  external 
thing  as  a  cause— it  must  k(.ow  it  in  other  characters  as  well,  in  particular  it  must  know 
it  as  extended — still,  it  knows  it  as  a  cause.  But,  except  in  the  mode  of  development, 
this  doctrine  does  not  differ  so  much  from  that  of  Locke  as  Cousin  imagines.  Locke 
derives  the  materials  of  all  our  ideas  from  sensation  and  reflection.  He  derives  our  idea 
of  cause  from  both  these  sources.  But  then  the  mind,  in  the  formation  of  its  idea's,  pro- 
ceeds intelligently,  reasonably.  There  is  intelligence,  according  to  Locke,  in  sensation, 
and  in  comparing  certain  ideas  the  mind  perceives  their  agreement  immediately  by  intui- 
tion. Locke's  account  of  the  full  phenomenon  does  not  seem  to  me  satisfactory,  or  very 
congruously  wrought  out;  but  it  is  quite  as  near  the  truth  as  that  of  Cousin,  who  calls 
sensation  the  chronological  condition,  and  reason  the  logical  principle.  (See  this  distinc- 
tion examined,  infra^  Fart  iii.  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect,  vi.) 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  113 

mind  involved  in  all  our  cognitions  of  matter  to  discover  that  there 
is  involved  in  it  a  knowledge  both  of  extension  and  of  property. 

Such  seem  to  be  some  of  the  princijoal  of  our  cognitions  tlirough 
the  senses  ;  and  I  Iiave  sought  to  evolve  them  by  an  analysis 
proceeding  on  a  careful  observation  of  their  nature. 


SECT.    III.— SOME   DISTINCTIONS   TO   BE   ATTENDED   TO   IN   REGARD   TO 
OUR   COGNITION   OF  BODY. 

It  is  a  fundamental  position  with  the  author  of  this  treatise  tliat 
we  ought  to  look  on  all  our  primitive  cognitions  as  guaranteeing 
a  reality.  In  particular,  we  are  to  look  on  each  of  our  sense- 
perceptions  as  pointing  to  a  corresponding  extra-mental  object. 
But  in  order  to  be  able  to  maiutain  this  doctrine  with  even  the 
appearance  of  plausil::Iity,  it  is  necessary  to  attend  to  certain 
distinctions. 

I.  There  is  tlie  Distixctiox  between  our  Original  and  Ac- 
quired Perceptions.  In  standing  up  for  the  trustworthiness  of 
our  perceptions,  I  always  mean  our  original  perceptions,  proceeding 
from  the  primitive  principles  of  the  mind,  and  having  the  sanction 
of  Him  Avho  gave  us  our  constitution.  The  perceptions  acquired 
by  inference,  or  other  intellectual  processes  grounded  on  experi- 
ence, will  have  a  corresponding  reality  only  when  these  processes 
have  been  validly  conducted. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  last  section  to  give  an  approximately 
correct  account  of  what  seem  to  be  our  original  preceptions  through 
the  various  senses.  But  to  our  primitive  stock  we  add  others,  and 
in  doing  so  we  employ  rules  derived  from  the  generalizations  of 
experience,  and  deductive  reasoning  in  applying  them  to  given 
cases.  In  taste  we  have  originally  only  a  sapid  affection  of  the 
palate,  but  by  experience  we  are  able  to  declare  that  tliis  i)arti- 
cular  sensation  is  produced  by  water  and  tliat  otlier  by  wine. 
Intuitively  we  cannot  say  what  sort  of  extra-organic  object  any 
smell  comes  from,  but  by  observation  we  have  ascertained  that 
this  odour  comes  from^the  rose  and  that  from  the  lily,  and  we 
guess  at  the  distance  of  tlie  object  by  the  strength  of  the  impres- 


lU  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

sion,  and  at  the  direction  by  finding  it  stronger  in  one  nostril  than 
in  another.  In  hearing  we  ascertain  the  distance  by  the  loudness 
of  the  sound,  and  the  direction  by  finding  it  louder  in  one  of  the 
cars,  or,  as  some  suppose,  by  the  affections  of  the  semicircular 
canals,  which  arc  usually  three  in  number,  and  lie  in  difi'erent 
planes.  Since  the  days  of  Berkeley  it  lias  been  all  but  universally 
acknowledged  that  the  perception  of  linear  distance  from  the  eye 
is  not  an  original  endowment  of  the  sense  of  sight.  It  is  always 
to  be  understood,  indeed,  that  the  eye  gives  a  spread-out  surface, 
which  prepares  us  from  measuring  distance,  by  giving  ns  visual 
extension  and  a  measure  of  extension.  It  is  also  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  there  is  a  provision  in  the  organism  itself  for  enabling 
us  to  ascertain  relative  distance.  First,  for  near  objects  there  is  a 
change  in  the  eyeball  giving  rise  to  muscular  affections  which  arc 
felt  by  us  ;  and  secondly,  for  all  distances,  near  or  far,  there  is  an 
alteration  of  the  parallelism  of  the  axes  of  the  two  eyes  intimated 
to  us  by  the  adductor  muscles.  With  these  natural  preparations 
and  aids  the  process  of  determining  the  distance  of  objects  from 
self  seems,  at  least  in  human  beings,  to  be  one  of  a  gatliered  expe- 
rience. Our  judgment  is  chiefly  founded  upon  the  apparent  size, 
when  the  actual  size  of  such  objects  is  known  to  us.  In  the 
operations  we  lay  down  and  we  follow  such  rules  as  these  : — The 
object  is  less  or  more  distant  according  to  the  size  of  surface  seen, 
according  to  its  distinctness  and  vividness,  and  according  to  the 
extent  of  ground  between  ourselves  and  the  object.^  Such  rules 
formed  by  us  are  found  approximately  correct,  and  useful  in  ordi- 
nary cases,  and  whenever  our  eyes  are  open  they  conduct  us  to  a 
knowledge  which  reaches  far  beyond  our  primitive  perceptions. 
But  tlicn  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  error  may  creep  into  our  acquired 

1  There  is  great  force  in  the  objections  urged  by  Mr.  Abbolt,  in  liis  recently  published 
work  on  Sight  and  Touch,  against  tlie  Bcrkeleian  theory  of  visif«i,  so  far  as  it  holds  that 
by  the  eye  we  preceive  colour  and  nothing  else.  But  suppose  we  affirm  that  the  eye 
intuitively  perceives  a  coloured  surface  ;  that  there  is  a  provision  in  the  organism  for 
enabling  us  to  measure  distance  by  experience;  and  that  by  binocular  vision  a  cube  is 
seen  to  be  different  from  a  square,  I  am  not  sure  that  his  arguments  go  the  length  of 
provinsr  that  by  immediate  sight  we  perceive  linear  distance.  Mr.  Abbott  has  given 
(p.  150)  an  account  of  the  observations  of  Dr.  Trinchinetti : — "lie  operated  at  the  same 
time  on  two  patients  (brother  and  sister),  eleven  and  ten  years  old  respectively.  The 
same  day,  having  caused  the  boy  to  examine  an  orange,  he  placed  it  about  one  metre 
from  him,  and  bade  bim  try  to  take  it.  The  boy  brought  his  hand  close  to  his  eyes 
('  quasi  a  contatto   del  suo   occhio'),  and   closing  his  fist,  found   it    empty,  to  his  great 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  115 

perceptions.  "We  may  reckon  a  rule  as  universal  which  has  many 
exceptions,  and  may  make  an  application  of  it  to  a  wrong  case.  It 
will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  all  the  supposed  deception  of  the 
senses  is  to  be  traced  to  the  wrong  inferences  which  we  draw  in 
our  acquired  perceptions. 

Almost  all  forms  of  idealism  (the  system  which  supposes  certain 
of  our  supposed  cognitions  to  be  creations  of  the  mind),  and  all 
forms  of  scepticism  (the  system  whicli  would  set  aside  all  our 
cognitions),  plead  the  deceitfulness  of  the  senses.  Our  senses  are 
not  to  be  trusted  in  some  things,  says  the  idealist,  and  we  are  to 
determine  by  reason  when  they  are  to  be  trusted.  Our  senses 
delude  us  in  some  things,  says  the  sceptic,  and  we  may  therefore 
distrust  them  in  all.  It  is  of  vast  moment  to  stop  these  errors  at 
the  point  at  which  they  flow  out,  by  showing  that  the  senses,  mean- 
ing our  original  perceptions  through  the  senses,  can  all  be  trusted 
in  regard  to  the  special  testimony  which  they  furnish. 

But  how,  it  is  asked,  does  the  stick  in  the  water,  felt  to  be 
straight  by  the  sense  of  touch,  seem  crooked  to  the  sense  of  siglit  ? 
The  answer  is,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  shape  of  an  object  does 
not  primarily  fall  under  the  sense  of  sight,  and  that  when  we 
determine  whether  a  stick  is  or  is  not  straight,  by  the  sense  of 
sight,  it  is  by  a  process  of  inference  in  which  we  have  laid  down 
the  rule  that  objects  that  give  a  certain  figure  before  the  eye  are 
crooked, — a  rule  correct  enough  for  common  cases,  but  not  appli- 
cable to  those  in  which  the  rays  of  light  are  refracted  in  passing 
from  one  medium  to  another.  Why  does  a  boy  seem  a  man,  and 
a  man  a  giant  in  a  mist,  whereas  if  you  clear  away  the  mist,  both 
are  instantly  reduced  to  their  proper  dimensions?  A  reply  can 
easily  be  given.     We  have  laid  down  the  rule  that  an  object  seen 

surprise.  lie  then  tried  again  a  few  inches  from  his  eye,  and  at  last,  in  this  tentative 
way,  succeeded  in  taking  the  orange.  When  the  same  experiment  was  tried  with  the  girl 
she  also  at  first  attempted  to  grasp  the  orange  with  her  hand  very  near  her  eye  ('  colla 
mano  assai  vicina  all'  occhio'),  then,  perceiving  her  error,  stretched  out  her  fore-finger 
and  pushed  it  in  a  straight  line  slowly  until  she  reached  the  object.  Other  patients  have 
been  observed  (by  Janin  and  Duval)  to  move  their  hands  in  search  of  objects  in  straight 
lines  from  the  eye."  In  a  case  operated  upon  by  Dr.  Franz  {Phil.  Trans.  1841)  all 
objects  appeared  so  near  that  he  was  sometimes  afraid  of  coming  in  contact  with  them. 
These  cases  seem  to  show  that  we  have  given  the  correct  account  when  (at  p.  105) 
we  represent  the  object  perceived  as  a  coloured  surface,  affecting  the  living  organism, 
and  in  the  direction  of  the  felt  and  localized  sentient  organ,  but  at  what  distance  we 
know  ujt. 


IIG  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

so  dimly  must  Lc  distant ;  but  an  object  appearing  of  sucli  dimen- 
sions at  a  distance  must  be  large  :  and  tlio  phenomenon  is  felt  to 
be  a  deception  only  by  tliose  wlio  arc  not  accustomed  to  move  in 
the  mist.  Why  does  a  mountain,  viewed  across  an  arm  of  t!ic  sea, 
seem  near,  -while  the  same  mountain,  seen  at  an  equal  distance 
beyond  an  undulated  country  studded  witii  houses  and  trees, 
appears  very  remote  ?  The  answer  is,  not  that  the  eye  has  de- 
ceived us,  but  tliat  Ave  have  made  a  mistaken  application  of  a  rule 
usually  correct,  that  an  object  must  be  near  when  few  objects 
intervene  between  us  and  it ;  and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  tliose 
■who  are  accustomed  to  look  across  sheets  of  water,  commit  no 
such  mistakes,  for  they  have  acquired  other  means  of  measuring 
distance.  Again,  we  have  found  it  true  in  cases  so  many,  that  we 
cannot  number  them,  that  wlien  we  are  at  rest  and  the  image  of 
an  object,  say  a  carriage,  passes  across  the  vision,  the  object  must 
be  in  motion.  That  rule  is  accurate  in  all  cases  similar  to  those 
from  which  it  v/as  derived  ;  but  it  fails  the  landsman  when,  feeling 
as  if  he  were  at  rest  in  the  sliip,  he  infers  that  the  shore  is  moving 
away  from  the  vessel.  In  all  such  cases  wc  see  that  it  is  not  the 
senses,  that  is,  the  natural  and  original  perceptions  of  the  senses 
having  the  authority  of  God,  which  deceive  us,  but  rules  formed 
by  ourselves,  and  illegitimately  applied.  It  may  be  observed  that 
the  same  experience  which  leads  us  to  gather  the  rules,  may  enable 
us  to  ascertain  the  limits  of  the  rules  and  the  exceptions.  It  is 
only  the  landsman  who  is  deceived  into  the  thought  that  the  shore 
is  moving ;  the  seaman  has  modified  the  rule,  or  rather,  he  realizes 
the  idea  that  he  himself  is  moving,  and  he  is  not  deceived  for  one 
instant. 

Supposing  this  to  be  tlie  correct  account,  we  may  stand  up  for 
the  trustworthiness  of  all  our  intuitive  perceptions,  at  least  when 
the  organism  and  the  mind  are  in  a  licalthy  state.  Even  in  cases 
in  which  the  organism  is  diseased,  t!ic  error  lies  commonly,  per- 
haps always,  in  a  wrong  inference.  Wlien  oin-  visual  organs  are 
distempered,  we  may  seem  to  see  a  solid  figure  before  us  which 
touch  tells  us  has  no  reality  ;  but  the  fact  is,  all  that  we  intuitively 
see  is  a  coloured  surface,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  organism, 
whether  solid  or  aerial,  we  know  not  intuitively.     We  hear  a  sound 


BOOK  I.]  ■     BODY.  117 

which  \rc  interpret  as  coming  from  a  voice  where  no  living  being 
can  be,  but  the  interpretation  is  our  own  :  all  that  our  nature 
deckres  is,  that  there  is  an  aifcction  of  our  auditory  organs.  The 
visions,  the  im.aginary  sounds,  touches,  and  smells,  perceived  by 
persons  whose  organs  are  diseased,  or  excited  by  strong  mental 
fancy  within — just  as  they  would  be  by  an  object  witliout — arc, 
after  all,  inferences  from  what  are  in  themselves  mere  organic 
affections.  In  the  greater  number  of  such  cases,  there  is  a  means 
of  detecting  the  error  occasioned  by  disease  in  one  of  the.  organs, 
by  other  organs  not  distempered.  At  the  same  time  I  am  not  in- 
clined to  deny  that  there  may  be  cases  in  which  the  brain  is  so 
disorganized,  and  the  mind  so  deranged,  that  the  person  is  given 
up  for  life  to  liopeless  delusion.  We  are  now  within  the  range  of 
phenomena  which  carry  us  into  the  deepest  mysteries  of  our  world, 
and  have  a  connection  with  man's  liability  to  disease,  and  the 
existence  of  sin. 

II.  There  is  the  Distixction  between  Sensation  and  Percep- 
tion. It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  fact,  that  every  given 
state  of  man's  mind  is  concrete  ;  that  is,  in  the  one  act  there  are 
elements  which  may  be  actually  separated  at  other  times,  or  which 
may  be  separated  by  mental  analysis.  Thus  in  a  given  state  of 
mind,  there  may  at  one  and  the  same  moment  be  an  exercise  of 
the  intelligence,  of  feeling,  and  of  will ;  in  one  act  we  may  com- 
prehend that  our  friend  is  in  distress,  may  feel  grieved  in  conse- 
quence, and  resolve  to  take  steps  to  relieve  him.  In  like  manner 
all  the  mental  affections  excited  by  the  action  of  tlie  bodily  senses 
are  concrete.  What  is  thus  mixed  up  in  one  concrete  act,  can  be 
separated  by  analysis,  and  ought  for  important  ends  to  be  so  sepa- 
rated :  indeed  the  separation  is  often  made  for  us  naturally,  for  we 
have  now  one  portion,  and  now  another  of  the  combined  state.  In 
particular,  it  is  of  great  moment  in  philosopliy  to  distinguish  be- 
tween tlie  sensations  and  perceptions  which  arc  always  mixed  up 
together. 

Perception  is  the  knowledge  of  the  object  presenting  itself  to 
the  senses,  whether  in  tlie  orgar.ism  or  beyond  it.  Sensation  is  the 
feeling  associated,— the  feeling  of  the  oiganism.     These  two  always 


lis  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

co-exist.'  There  is  never  the  knowledge  without  an  organic  feel- 
ino-  •  never  a  feeling  of  the  organism  without  a  cognitive  appre- 
hension of  it.  These  sensations  differ  widely  from  each  other,  as 
our  consciousness  testifies  ;  some  of  them  being  pleasant,  some 
]iainful ;  otliers  indifferent  as  to  pleasure  and  pain,  but  still  with  a 
feeling.  Some  we  call  exciting,  others  dull  ;  some  we  designate 
as  warm,  others  as  cold  ;  and  for  most  of  them  we  have  no  name 
whatever, — indeed  they  so  run  into  each  other  that  it  would  be 
difficult  to  discriminate  them  by  a  specific  nomenclature.  The 
perceptions,  again,  are  as  numerous  and  varied  as  the  knowledge 
we  have  by  all  the  senses.  Now  these  two  ever  mix  themselves 
up  with  each  other.  The  sensation  of  the  odour  mingles  with  the 
apprehension  of  the  nostrils  ;  the  flavour  of  the  food  is  joined  with 
the  recognition  of  the  palate  ;  the  agreeablencss  or  disagreeableness 
of  the  sound  comes  in  with  the  knowledge  of  the  ear  as  affected  ; 
and  the  feeling  organ  which  we  localize  has  an  associated  sensation. 
There  is  an  organic  sensation  conjoined  even  with  the  knowledge 
we  have  of  the  extra-organic  object  affecting  our  muscular  sense  or 
our  visual  organism.  This  sensation  may  be  little  noticed  because 
the  attention  is  fixed  on  the  object  ;  still  it  is  always  there,  as  we 
may  discover  by  a  careful  introspection  of  the  combined  mental 
affection. 

But  this  leads  me  to  notice  that  in  the  concrete  mental  state 
sometimes  tlie  perception  or  tlie  knowledge  is  the  more  prominent, 
whereas  at  other  times  the  sensation  is  the  predominant.  There  is 
a  difference  indeed  of  the  senses  in  this  respect.  Thus  in  the 
senses  of  taste,  smell,  touch  proper,  and  the  allied  senses  of  tem- 
perature, titillation,  shuddering  and  flesh-creeping,  the  sensation  is 
the  prevailing  element.  These  may  be  regarded  as  the  lower  and 
the  more  animal  sense's,  in  whicli  the  attention  is  largely  absorbed 
in  self.  In  hearing,  so  far  as  the  original  perceptions  are  con- 
cerned, tlie  sensation  is  still  the  predominant  affection  ;  but  as  we 
come  to  know  the  sounding  bodies,  our  attention  is  often  directed 
almost   exclusively   to   the   object.      Thus  we   are   listening   to   a 

'  Reid  represents  the  sensation  being  "followed  by  a  perception  of  the  object;"  on 
which  Hamilton  remarks,  "  that  sensation  proper  precedes  perception  proper  is  a  false 
assumption;  they  are  simultaneous  elements  of  the  same  invisible  energy"  (Rcid's 
Culkcled  Writimjs,  p.  186  ;  see  also  p.  853), 


BOOK  I]  BODY.  119 

person  speaking  we  lose  sight  of  the  licaring  ear,  and  think  only 
of  what  is  said.  Still,  when  the  sounds  are  unpleasant,  or  when 
they  are  peculiarly  pleasant,  as  in  music,  it  is  the  sensation  that 
absorbs  the  attention.  In  the  muscular  sense  it  is  the  resisting 
object  that  is  most  noticed.  In  sight  the  colour  is  largely  (but  not 
exclusively,  as  will  be  shown  forthwith)  a  sensational,  wliereas  the 
spread-out  surface  is  the  perceptive  element.  In  many  of  our 
acts  of  vision  there  is  a  nice  balancing  of  the  two,  the  colour  and 
the  form  being  alike  noticed  ;  in  others  the  colour,  by  its  gorgeous- 
ness,  absorbs  the  whole  mental  energy  ;  while  in  a  third  class  the 
colour-sensation  is  lost  sight  of,  and  we  are  conscious  of  scarcely 
anything  more  than  the  form.  And  here  I  am  tempted  to  remark 
that  in  the  lower  forms,  both  in  nature  and  of  the  fine  arts,  it 
is  the  colour  which  is  the  more  striking  characteristic  ;  and 
children,  and  persons  low  in  the  scale  of  intelligence,  feel  a  pecu- 
liar delight  in  sucli  objects.  As  we  rise,  in  nature  to  the  common 
herbaceous  plants,  and  in  art  to  flovrer-painting,  there  is  often  a 
union  of  the  beauty  both  of  colour  and  of  form.  "When  we  mount 
to  the  highest  plants,  as  to  the  trees  of  the  forest,  and  to  the  animal 
creation  and  the  human  form,  and  in  art  to  historical  painting, 
varied  colouriug  disappears,  that  higher  minds  may  gaze  with  un- 
divided attention  on  objective  forms  characterized  by  high  propor- 
tions, or  full  of  life,  or  suggestive  of  character. 

It  should  not  be  omitted  that  the  mind  can  at  any  time  fix 
its  attention  more  specially  on  one  of  these,  and  then  the  other 
will  very  much  disappear  from  the  field  of  view.  Sometimes  this 
is  done  for  us  spontaneously,  by  the  vividness  of  tlie  sensation  on 
the  one  hand,  or  by  the  interest  wliich  collects  around  the  external 
object  on  the  other.  Sometimes  the  concentration  is  effected  by 
a  strong  act  of  will,  fixing  the  mind's  regards  on  one  or  other  in 
order  to  gain  a  special  end.  Thus  we  may  yield  ourselves  entirely 
to  a  luscious  strain  of  music,  or  Ave  may  be  absorbed  in  thought 
about  some  object,  so  as  scarcely  to  notice  tlie  sounds.  Under 
ear-ache  we  may  have  the  whole  energy  of  the  mind  concentred  on 
the  pain,  and  be  able  to  attend  to  nothing  else  ;  or  we  may  be  so 
interested  in  a  discourse  on  a  topic  of  thought  as  scarcely  to  feel 
the  torture. 


120  PBUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ir. 

But  wliilc  the  two  ever  co-exist,  sometimes  witli  the  one  prevail- 
ing and  sometimes  with  the  other  predominant,  and  sometimes 
with  the  two  nicel}^  balanced,  it  is  of  importance  to  distinguish 
them.  Every  man  of  sense  draws  the  distinction  between  the 
music  and  the  musical  instrument,  between  the  ear-ache  and  his 
cai\  The  metaphysician  sliould  also  draw  the  distinction, — indeed 
it  is  essential  that  he  do  so.  The  two  were  given  for  different 
ends.  Our  perceptions  are  the  main  means  of  supplying  us  with 
knowledge,  wliereas  our  sensations  are  meant  to  increase  our  enjoy- 
ment, to  stimulate  to  exertion,  to  give  warning,  or  perhaps  to 
inflict  penalties.  We  must  beware,  both  philosophically  and 
practically,  of  confounding  our  sensations  and  our  perceptions,  our 
feelings  and  our  cognitions.  In  the  confounding  of  the  two  we 
have  another  circumstance  leading  men  to  charge  their  senses  with 
deception.  This  will  appear  more  fully  when  we  come  to  notice 
another  set  of  distinctions. 

III.  There  are  Distixctioxs  between  the  Objects  Known. 
There  is  tlie  distinction  between  the  organic  object  and  the  object 
beyond  the  organism.  There  is  the  more  delicate  distinction  be- 
tween the  objects  immediately  known  as  extra-organic  and  objects 
inferred  as  existing  and  affecting  the  organism  but  themselves 
unknown.     Let  me  explain  these  distinctions. 

We  have  seen  that  in  some  of  the  senses  the  proper  object  of 
perception  is  the  organism  itself.  In  two  others  it  is  beyond  the 
organism.     Let  us  consider  these  two  classes  in  order. 

In  the  first  class  all  that  we  know  immediately  is  the  organism 
as  affected.  But  if  affected,  it  must  be  affected  by  something.  It 
is  in  one  state  this  instant,  and  it  will  be  in  another  state  the 
next.  The  intuitive  conviction  of  causation — to  be  afterwards 
discussed — constrains  us  to  look  for  an  agent  to  produce  the  effect. 
And  wdiere  is  this  agent  to  be  found  ?  In  the  organism,  or  beyond 
the  organism  ?  I  am  certain,  in  regard  to  some  of  our  organic 
aiTections,  that  intuition  says  nothing  on  this  special  point.  This  is 
the  case  with  the  sense  of  smell,  of  taste,  of  touch,  and  temperature, 
• — and  I  think  also,  though  with  some  hesitation,  witli  the  sense  of 
hearino".    The  intuitive  conviction  of  cause  and  effect  does  indeed 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  121 

intimate  that  there  must  be  a  cause,  but  as  to  where  that  cause  is 
to  be  found  we  must  trust  to  experience,  which  tells  us  that  in 
some  cases  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  organism  itself,  and  in  other 
cases  in  an  agent  beyond, — such  as  odorous  particles,  sapid  bodies, 
heat,  undulations  from  a  sounding  body,  or  a  solid  object  applied 
to  our  nerves  of  touch.  In  all  cases  the  affection  of  sense  and  the 
conviction  of  cause  combined  are  sufficient  to  prompt  us  to  look 
round  for  an  agent.  The  senses  act  as  monitors,  and  most  important 
monitors  they  arc,  of  powers  working  in  our  bodily  frames,  and  in 
the  physical  universe  around  us.  I  believe  that  every  one  of  our 
senses  gives  us  intimation  of  powers, — such  as  floating  particles, 
light,  and  heat,  which  are  among  the  most  powerful  agencies  con- 
ducting the  processes  of  the  material  world.  Still  these  are  unknown 
to  our  senses,  and  we  become  aware  of  their  existence  merely  as 
causes  of  known  effects.  As  to  what  odours,  sounds,  flavours,  heat, 
and,  we  may  add,  light  and  colours  are,  our  intuitions  are  silent, 
and  their  nature  is  to  be  determined  by  observation, — indeed  can  be 
determined  only  by  elaborate  scientific  research.  It  should  be  added, 
that  while  science  has  ascertained  much  about  them,  it  has  not,  in  its 
latest  advances,  been  able  to  settle  what  is  the  exact  nature  of  such 
agents  as  heat,  light,  and  colour. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  other  class  of  senses,  which  give  us  a 
knowledge  of  extra-organic  objects.  By  the  muscular  sense  we 
know  an  object  as  extended  in  three  dimensions,  and  as  resisting 
our  effort.  We  have  thus  a  knowledge  of  objects  extended,  and 
exercising  dynamic  energy  beyond  the  little  world  of  self 

The  sense  of  sight  presents  peculiar  difficulties  in  this  connec- 
tion. It  seems  to  me  clearly  to  look  at  an  extended  surface,  not 
part  of  our  organism,  but  affecting  it.  But  what  are  we  to  make 
of  colour  ?  It  is  the  greatest  difficulty  which  the  metaphysician 
meets  v/ith  in  the  investigation  of  the  senses.  The  mind  knows 
the  perceived  object  to  be  in  its  nature  extended ;  but  do  we  also 
know  it  as  in  its  very  nature  coloured  ?  If  so,  is  there  colour  in 
the  object  as  there  is  extension  ?  The  following  is  tlie  solution 
which  I  am  inclined  to  offer  of  this  difficult  subject.  The  sense  of 
colour  may  be  regarded  as  intermediate  between  those  senses  in 
whicli  we  perceive  an  extra-organic  object,  and  those  other  senses 


122  PBUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii 

•wliich  reveal  merely  the  orgauism  as  affected,  but  whether  by 
agents  ^vithin  or  beyond  the  organism  we  know  not.  In  the  sense 
of  colour,  we  primarily  know  only  the  organism  as  affected,  but 
we  are  intuitively  led,  at  tlie  same  time,  to  look  on  what  tlins 
affects  our  organism  as  not  in  the  organism,  but  as  in  the  ex- 
tended surface  in  whicli  it  is  seen.  But  beyond  this,  that  is 
beyond  colour  being  an  extra-organic  cause  of  an  organic  affec- 
tion, we  know  nothing  of  its  nature  by  intuition.  If  this  account 
be  correct,  we  see  that  our  sense  of  colour  is  different,  on  the  one 
hand,  from  the  knowledge  of  our  sensations  of  heat,  or  smell,  or 
taste,  for  we  do  not  know  whether  the  causes  of  these  are  within 
or  beyond  the  frame,  while  we  do  know  that  colour  is  out  of  our- 
selves in  a  surface  ;  and  different,  too,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  extended  surface  and  the  impenetrability  which 
are  revealed  directly  by  the  sight  and  muscular  sense,  whereas  we 
do  not  knoAV  what  colour  is.  Hence  arises,  if  I  do  not  mistake, 
that  peculiar  conviction  regarding  colour  which  has  so  puzzled 
metaphysicians.  The  sense  of  colour  combines,  in  closest  union, 
the  sensation  and  the  perception,  the  organic  affection  and  the 
extra-organic.  I  confess  I  have  always  fondly  clung  to  the  idea 
that,  sooner  or  later,  colour  will  be  found  by  physical  investigation 
to  have  a  reality,  I  do  not  say  of  what  kind,  in  every  material 
object.^ 

By  help  of  such  distinctions  as  these,  we  may  defend  the  validity 
of  all  our  native  convictions  through  the  senses.  In  doing  so,  it 
will  be  observed  that  we  stand  up  for  the  trustworthiness  of  our 
original,  but  not  necessarily  of  our  acquired  perceptions  ;  that  we 
stand  up  for  a  reality  corresponding  to  our  perceptions  proper,  but 
not  therefore  to  our  associated  sensations ;  and  that  we  stand  up 
for  a  reality,  be  it  organic,  or  extra-organic,  or  both,  corresponding 
to  each  particular  sense  as  for  itself,  but  not  a  reality  for  any  one 
sense  of  precisely  the  same  kind  as  the  reality  for  the  others.     The 

1  In  Typical  Forms  and  Special  Ends  in  Creation,  by  J.  Jl'Cosb  and  Geo.  Dickie  (p.  1G5 
2d  ed.)  i  have  pointed  to  a  nun\ber  of  phenomena,  which  seem  to  show  that  colour  is  a 
reality  in  the  object,  which  reality  is  made  known  to  us  by  means  of  tbe  reflection  of  the 
beam  by  the  colour.  When  the  undivided  beam  falls  on  the  green  leaves  of  a  plant,  the 
green  beam  is  reflected  and  reaches  our  eye,  and  the  red  is  absorbed,  not  to  be  lost,  but  to 
come  out  in  russet  bark,  or  red  flower,  or  berry. 


BOOK  I.]  BODY,  123 

senses  can  be  supposed  to  deceive  us,  when  the  organism  and  mind 
arc  in  a  sound  state,  only  when  we  overlook  one  or  other  or  all  of 
these  distinctions. 


SECT.   1\.-{SUPPLEMENTABY)    BRIEF  HISTORICAL    SKETCH    OF  OPINIONS 
AS  TO   THE   VERACITY   OP  THE  SENSES. 

The  Eleatics  looked  upon  the  senses  as  deceiving,  and  appealed  to  the  reason 
as  discovering  the  abiding  {to  uv)  amid  the  fleeting.  The  question  arose :  Since 
the  senses  are  delusive,  what  reason  have  we  for  thinking  that  the  reason  is 
trustworthy  ?  Heraclitus  the  Dark  thought  that  the  senses  give  only  the  transient, 
and  that  man  can  discover  nothing  more.  Plato  mediated  between  the  two 
schools,  and  thought  that  there  were  two  elements  in  sense-perception,  an  ex- 
ternal and  an  internal :  Kdl  5  dij  ticaaTov  slvat  (pafiev  ;\;pw/ia,  ovte  tu  'Kpoai3u/Jkov  ovre  rb 
Trpo(y[3a?i'X6fxevov  earai,  cIAAd  /ietu^v  tl  e/caffru  i6i,ov  yeyovog'  ?/  ob  duaxvptaaio  uv  ug  olov 
aol  (paivETac  EKactTOv  xp^f^^j '''o^ovTOV  Kol  kvvI  koI  otuovv  fojcj  {Theat.  2S).  'EyewTjaE 
yap  6fi  kK  ruv  irpou/xoTioyTjfMEVuv  to  te  tvolovv  koI  to  wuaxov  yXvKVTjjTtl  te  koI  oiadrjaLv, 
(ifia  (pspu/Lieva  u/i(j)uTepa  (43).  This  theory  has  ever  since  been  maintained  hj  a 
succession  of  thinkers,  including  the  school  of  Kant.  Unfortunately  they  can 
give  us  no  rule  to  enable  us  to  distinguish  between  what  we  are  to  allot  to  sub- 
jective and  what  to  the  objective  factors.  Possibly  the  following  passage,  affirm- 
ing that  science  is  not  iu  sensations  but  in  our  reasoning  about  them,  may  have 
suggested  the  theory  of  Aristotle,  which  has  long  divided  the  phUosojjhic  world 
with  that  of  Plato  :  'Ev  filv  upa  Tolg  rcadi/jiaaiv  ovk  f.vc  hnLGTiJiir],  tv  dh  tu  nepl  ekeIvuv 
cvTuioyLGfLC)  (107). 

Aristotle  with  his  usual  judgment  and  penetration  started  the  right  explana- 
tion (see  De  Anima,  Lib.  m.  Chap.  i.  iii.  vi).  He  says  that  perception  by  a  sense 
of  things  peculiar  to  that  sense  is  true,  or  involves  the  smallest  amount  of  eiTor. 
But  when  such  objects  are  perceived  in  their  accidents  (that  is,  as  to  things  not 
falling  peculiarly  under  that  sense),  there  is  room  for  Mseliood,  when,  for  in- 
stance, a  thing  is  said  to  be  white  there  is  no  falsehood,  but  when  the  object  is 
said  to  be  this  or  that  (if  the  white  thing  is  said  to  be  Cleon,  cf.  iii.  i.  7),  there 
may  be  falsehood :  'H  aladjjaig  tUv  filv  ISluv  dl7]0i]g  ectlv,  ?}  6tl  dliyioTov  ixovaa  to 
ipEvdog'  dEVTspov  61  tov  cv/Xf3£J3rjKEvac  TaiJTW  kolI  IvTavOa  f/drj  tvdexsTai  6iaipEv6ECi6ai  otl 
fiiv  yap  2,EVKbv,  ov  ipEvdETai,  eI  61  tovto  rb  TiEvubv  Jj  uXko  ri,  'ipEv6ETai.  (ill.  iii.  13). 
'AA/l'  uaKEQ  TO  upg.v  tov  IStov  dTirjOEC,  el  6'  uvdpuTroQ  Tb  Ievkov  f]  /ii},  ovk  d\r]dtg  alei 
(ill.  vi.  7).  Aristotle  saw  that  the  difficulties  might  be  cleared  ujj  by  attending 
to  what  each  sense  testifies,  and  separating  the  associated  imaginations  and 
opinions  or  judgments.  The  full  explanation,  however,  could  not  be  given  till 
Berkeley  led  men  to  distinguish  between  the  original  and  acquired  i^erceptions 
of  the  senses,  by  showing  that  the  knowledge  of  distance  hy  the  eye  is  an 
acquisition. 

The  views  of  the  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Academics  may  be  gathered  from  the 
Academic  Questions  of  Cicero.  All  of  them  sought  to  save  the  senses  by  a  dis- 
tinction of  some  kind.  The  Stoics  represent  the  senses  as  simply  satellites  and 
messengers  (see  Cicero,  De  Legihus,  quoted  Lipsius'  Manud.  ad  Pkilos.  Stoic. 
U.  11),  and  place  above  them  a  power  of  comprehension,  KaTu^.ijipir,  which  judgea 
the  information  given  by  the  senses.    The  Epicureans  thought  the  senses  never 


12'i  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

deceive,  but  then  tliey  give  U3  things  only  as  they  appear.  The  Academics 
maintained  that  the  intellect  and  not  sense  is  the  judge  of  truth :  "  Non  esse 
judicium  veiitatis  in  sensibus,  mentem  volebant  rerum  esse  judicem."  They  held 
"  seusus  omncs  hebetes  et  tardos  esse  arbitrabantur,  nee  pcrcipere  ullo  modo  eas 
res,  qncG  subjectne  sensibus  vidercntur ;  quaj  essent  ant  ita  parvaj,  ut  sub  sensum 
cadere  non  possent ;  aut  ita  mobiles  et  concitata?,  ut  nihil  unquam  unum  esse 
constans"  {Acad.  Quas.  i.  8),  and  so  reality  becomes  a  matter  of  opinion  or  prob- 
ability. 

Augustine  follows  out  the  views  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  specially  those  of 
Aristotle.  Thus  in  his  exposition  of  Categories  Decern  ex  AristoteU  Decerptcp,  v. : 
"  Sunt  igitur  iila  quce  aut  percipimus  sensibus,  aut  mente  et  cogitatione  coUigimus. 
Sensibus  teuemus  qua3  aut  videndo,  aut  contrectando,  aut  audiendo,  aut  gustando, 
aut  odorando  cognoscimus.  Mente,  ut  cum  quis  equum,  aut  hominem,  aut  quod- 
libet  animEB  viderit,  quanquam  unum  corpus  esse  respondeat,  intelligi  tamen 
multis  partibus  esse  concretum."  He  illustrates  his  meaning  elsewhere :  "  Si  quis 
remum  fraugi  in  aqua  opiuatur,  et  cum  inde  aufertur  integrari  ;  non  malum 
habet  intcmuntium,  sed  malus  est  judex.  Nam  ille  pro  sua  natm-a  non  potuit 
aliter  sentire,  nee  aliter  debuit;  si  enim  aliud  est  aer,  aliud  aqua,  justum  est  ut 
aliter  in  acre,  aliter  in  aqua  sentiatur"  {Lih.  de  Ver.  Relig.  c.33).  The  subject  is 
discussed  Contra  Academicos,  24-28.  Anselm  treats  the  subject  in  much  the 
same  way  as  Augustine  {Dialog,  de  Verit.  vi).  He  says  the  error  is  to  be  ascribed 
not  to  the  senses  but  to  the  judgment  of  the  mind :  "  Falsitas  non  in  sensibus 
sed  opinione."  It  is  the  mind  that  imparts  the  false  appearances  as  the  boy 
fears  the  sculptm-ed  dragon.  "  Unde  contingit  ut  sensus  interior  culpam  suam 
imputet  sensui  exteriori." 

In  modem  times,  metaphysicians  have  vacillated  between  the  Platonic  and 
Aristotelian  theories,  some  as  Kant  and  Hamilton,  making  every  perception 
partly  subjective,  and  others  ascribing  the  supposed  deception  to  wi'ong  deduc- 
tions from  the  matter  supplied  by  the  senses.  The  Sensational  School  of  France 
and  T.  Brown  make  all  external  perception  an  inference  from  sensations  in  the 
mind,  and  refer  the  mistakes  to  wrong  reasoning.  The  question  will  be  settled 
when  it  is  determined  what  are  the  original  perceptions  through  the  senses. 
On  the  supposition  that  what  we  intuitively  perceive  is  our  organism,  and  by 
the  muscular  sense  and  sight  the  objects  immediately  affecting  it,  we  can 
explain  most  of  the  phenomena  of  the  senses,  and  give  a  rational  explanation 
of  their  apparent  deceptions. 

SECT,  v.— THE  QUALITIES   OF  MATTER  KNOWN  BY  INTUITION. 

The  distinctions  unfolded  in  Sect.  iii.  seem  to  be  the  all-impor- 
tant ones,  in  order  to  enable  us  to  defend  the  trustworthiness  of 
our  sense-perceptions.  I  have  not  mentioned  the  famous  distinc- 
tion between  the  Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities  of  Matter, 
because  so  far  as  it  is  fitted  to  clear  up  and  establish  the  veracity 
of  the  senses,  it  is  embraced  in  those  which  we  have  drawn,  and 
which  are  fitted,  in  my  opinion,  to  bring  out  the  whole  truth  in  a 
fuller   and  more  distinct  manner.    But  it  will  be  necessary,  for 


BOOK  I.]  BODY.  12'5 

ctlior  pliilosopliic  ends  to  draw  a  distinction  between  the  qualities 
of  matter  which  are  primitively  known,  and  others  which  may 
become  known  by  induction  or  scientific  research.  The  qualities 
of  matter  known  to  intuition  may  be  divided  into  three  classes : — 
those  which  relate  to  space  ;  those  which  one  body  exercises  in 
reference  to  another ;  those  which  body  exercises  in  reference  to 
the  sensitive  and  perceiving  mind.  Let  it  be  observed,  in  regard 
to  all  of  these,  that  the  quality  in  the  body  always  relates  to  some- 
thing else,  so  passive  and  dependent  is  body  in  its  action  on  what 
is  out  of  itself. 

I.  Tlicre  are  the  Qualities  of  Matter  by  which  it  occupies  Space 
and  is  contained  in  Space,  that  is,  Extension.  We  have  this 
knowledge,  I  believe,  through  each  of  our  senses  ;  for  in  each  we 
know  the  corresponding  organs  as  extended  and  out  of  each  ocher, 
and  through  two  of  the  senses  we  know  objects  beyond  our  bodily 
frame  as  extended.  Hamilton  represents  extension  as  a  necessary 
constituent  of  our  notion  of  Matter,  and  evolves  it  from  "  two 
catholic  conditions  of  matter ;  (I.)  the  occupying  space,  and  (II.) 
tlie  being  contained  in  space.  Of  these,  the  former  affords  (a) 
Trinal  Extension,  explicated  again  into  (i.)  Divisibility,  (ii.)  Size, 
containing  under  it  Density  or  Rarity,  (ill.)  Figm-e,  and  (b) 
Ultimate  Incompressibility ;  while  the  latter  gives  (a)  ISIobility, 
and  (b)  Situation.  Neglecting  subordination,  we  have  tiius  eight 
proximate  attributes:  1.  Extension;  2.  Divisibility;  3.  Size;  4. 
Density  or  Rarity  ;  5.  Figure ;  G.  Incompressibility  absolute  ;  7. 
Mobility  ;  8.  Situation."  ' 

II.  The  Qualities  Avliicli  one  body  exercises  in  reference  to 
another ;  in  other  words,  the  Properties  or  Forces  of  matter.  I 
have  expended  much  labour  in  vain  if  I  have  not  shown,  in  pre- 
vious sections,  that  here  we  have  a  necessary  conviction.  In  the 
visual  and  locomotive  senses,  we  know  an  extra-organic  object  as 
affecting  us  and  our  organism.  All  this  seems  to  be  involved  in 
our  perception,  and  to  be  a  native  conviction  of  tlic  mind,  to 
which  it  is    ever    prompted,  and    from    which    it    can    never  be 

>  Hamilton's  Reid,  Note  I),  p.  848. 


12G  PItUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [rART  ii. 

delivered.  Not  only  so,  we  are  ever  led  to  look  for  a  producing 
cause,  even  of  our  purely  organic  affections  in  the  ear  and  palate 
and  nostrils.  A  knowledge  of  poAvcr,  and  a  conviction  of  power 
being  in  exercise,  is  thus  involved  in  our  very  perceptions  tlirough 
tlic  senses. 

Adhering  to  these  views,  we  must  set  aside  at  once  two  opposite 
doctrines  Avhich  have  had  the  support  each  of  a  number  of  eminent 
metaphysicians  or  metaphysical  speculators.  The  one  is  that 
matter  is  known  as  possessing  no  other  quality  than  extension. 
This  error  originated  with  Descartes,'  and  has  prevailed  extensively 
among  those  metaphysicians  who  have  felt  his  influence.  But 
tlie  view  is  opposed  to  that  intuition  which  represents  all  matter 
as  having  and  exercising  energy.  On  the  other  side,  there  are 
speculators  who  maintain  that  all  the  phenomena  of  matter  can 
be  explained  by  supposing  it  to  possess  potency.  This  mistake 
sprang  from  Leibnitz,  who  supposed  that  the  universe  of  matter 
(and  of  mind)  was  composed  of  monads  having  power,  and  to 
which  the  mind  imparted  the  relation  of  space.'^  But  the  dynam- 
ical theory  of  body,  so  far  as  it  denies  the  existence  of  space,  and 
body  as  occupying  space,  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  that  funda- 
mental conviction,  of  which  the  mind  can  never  be  shorn,  which 
declares  that  the  matter  which  has  force  must  be  extended,  and 
that  the  force  exercised  is  a  force  in  a  body  in  one  part  of  space, 
over  another  body  in  a  different  part  of  space. 

III.  There  is  the  influence,  that  is,  power,  which  the  bodily 
organs  liave  over  the  mind.  I  feel  that  I  must  speak  with  great 
caution  on  this  topic.  Neither  physiology  nor  psychology  has 
been  able  to  throw  any  liglit  on  the  particular  way  in  which  body 
affects  mind.  The  tlicorics  wliich  have  been  introduced — such  as 
that  of  Occasional  Causes  by  the  disciples  of  Descartes,  and   of 

1  "  L'espace  ou  le  lieu  interieur  et  le  coi-jjs  qui  est  compris  en  cet  espace,  ne  sont  differ- 
eiits  aussi  que  par  notre  pensee.  Car,  en  effet  la  mcme  etendue  en  longueur,  largeur  et  pro- 
fondeur  qui  constitue  l'espace  constitue  le  corps"  (Des.  Aled.  p.  ii.  10). 

2  Leibnitz  held  that  bodies  are  endowed  with  some  sort  of  active  force.  "  Les  corps  sent 
douos  de  quelque  force  active."  This  force  maybe  called  life:  "  C'est  une  realito  imma- 
terielle,  indivisible  et  indestructible :  il  en  met  partout  dans  le  corps  croyant  qu'il  n'y  a 
point  de  partie  de  la  masse  oil  il  n'y  ait  un  corps  organise,  doue  de  quelque  perception  ou 
d'une  maniere  d'ame  {Op.  p.  694:  ed.  Erdmann).  That  he  looked  upon  space  as  a  relation 
will  come  out  below. 


BOOK  I.]  SPIRIT.  127 

Preestablished  Harmony  by  Leibnitz,  and  of  "  impressions"  by 
modern  pliysiologists — have  only  increased,  instead  of  removing 
the  difficulties.  We  cannot  say  whether  the  org-anism  affects  the 
knowing  mind  immediately  or  mediately.  We  cannot  say  whether 
it  has  power  in  itself,  or  whether  the  power  may  not  lie  in  some 
other  agent  working  in  the  organ.  We  cannot  say  whetlicr  the 
power  lies  exclusively  in  the  organ,  or,  as  is  more  probable,  in  the 
organ  and  mind  combined.  Scientific  research  lias  thrown  no 
liglit  on  tliese  mysteries,  and  intuition  should  not  pretend  to 
settle  these  questions.  Still  intuition  seems  to  me  to  say  that, 
connected  with  the  organism,  there  is  power  of  some  kind  to  call 
forth  mental  action. 

Sucli  seem  to  be  the  qualities  of  matter  which  we  know  by 
intuition.  But  even  in  regard  to  these,  experience  is  ever  adding 
to  our  knowledge,  which  we  arrange  and  systematize  by  induction 
and  science.  Whatever  other  qualities  of  matter — if  there  be  such 
— may  become  known  to  ns,  are  discovered  by  experience.  I 
have  put  the  qualification  if  there  he  such,  because  in  fact  we  do 
not  know  wlicther  all  the  other  qualities  of  body  be  not  modifica- 
tions of  those  we  have  named.  We  are  made  aware  of  such  agents 
as  ])cat,  liglit,  electricity,  magnetism,  but  it  is  an  unsettled  question 
whether  thc}'^  are  bodies  or  (as  is  more  probable)  affections  of  body, 
implying  forces  of  a  peculiar  character.  These  are  questions  which 
can  be  determined  only  by  physical  science,  proceeding  in  the 
method  of  induction. 

SECT.   VI.— OUR  INTUITIVE  COGNITION  OF  SELF  OR  OF  SPIRIT. 

It  is  very  probable  (though  it  can  never  be  positively  proven) 
that  the  first  knowledge  acquired  by  the  mind  is  of  our  own  bodily 
frame,  through  the  sensitive  organism  —  a  view  which  does  not 
imply  that,  apart  altogether  from  such  perceptions,  the  spirit 
would  not  have  operated.  But  whatever  may  be  the  theory  formed 
on  this  speculative  subject,  it  is  certain  that  wlicnevcr  or  however 
the  mind  is  aroused  into  an  act  of  intelligence,  there  is  always 
involved  in  the  exercise  a  knowledge  of  self.  Coexisting  with 
every  intelligent  act  of  mind  there  is   always  a  self-consciousness. 


12S  PEIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [paet  ii. 

But  let  it  DC  carefully  observed  that  this  knowledge  is  not  of  an 
abstract  being  or  substance,  or  of  an  ego,  or  of  an  essence,  but  of 
the  concrete  self  in  the  particular  state  in  whicli  it  may  be,  with 
the  particular  thoughts,  sensations,  or  purposes,  which  it  may  be 
entertaining  at  the  time.  Let  us  observe,  and  seek  to  evolve,  what 
is  involved  in  the  cognition  of  self. 

I.  We  know  self  as  having  being,  existence.  The  knowledge  we 
have  in  self-consciousness,  which  is  associated  with  every  intelli- 
gent act,  is  not  of  an  impression,  as  Hume  would  say,  nor  of  a  mere 
quality  or  attribute,  as  certain  of  the  Scottish  metaphysicians 
affirm,'  nor  of  a  phenomenon,  in  the  sense  of  appearance,  as  Kant 
supposes,'  but  of  a  thing  or  reality.  In  affirming  this,  we  are 
simply  bringing  out  and  expressing  what  is  embraced  in  our  primi- 
tive cogni'iion.  Y,o  cccoir.it  which  falls  short  of  tiiis  can  be 
regarded  as  a  full  exhiljition  of  the  facts  falling  under  our  eye 
when  vre  look  within.      If  any  man  maintain  that  all  that  we  can 

1  The  Scottish  School  generally  maintains  that  we  do  not  know  mind  and  body,  but 
only  the  qualities  of  them.  Reid  indeed  says,  "  Every  man  is  conscious  of  a  thinking 
principle,  or  mind,  in  himself"  {Collected  Writings,  p.  217).  Campbell,  in  his  Philoso- 
plnj  of  Rhetoric,  speaks  of  consciousness  being  aoncerned  with  "the  existence  of  mind 
itself,  and  its  actual  feelings,"  etc.  (Book  i.  Chap.  v.  p.  2).  But  this  language  is  not  free 
from  ambiguity.  Reid  says  that  "sensation  suggests  to  us  both  a  faculty  and  a  mind,  and 
not  only  suggests  the  notion  of  them,  but  creates  a  belief  of  their  existence ;"  and  he  de- 
fends the  use  of  the  word  "  suggest,"  which  I  reckon  a  very  unfortunate  one  in  such  an 
application  {OoUectcd  Writings,  pp.  110,  111).  This  view  is  carried  out  and  elaborated 
by  D.  Stewart:  "  It  is  not  matter  or  body  which  I  perceive  by  my  senses,  but  only  exten- 
sion, figure,  colour,  and  certain  other  qualities,  which  the  constitution  of  my  nature  leada 
me  to  refer  to  something  which  is  extended,  figured,  and  coloured.  The  case  is  precisely 
similar  with  respect  to  mind.  We  are  not  immediately  coi.scious  of  its  existence,  but  we 
are  conscious  of  sensation,  thought,  and  volition,  operations  which  imply  the  existence  of 
something  which  feels,  thinks,  and  wills"  {Elem.  Vol.  I.  p.  46 ;  see  also  Vol.  ii.  p.  41,  and 
I'Ml.  Essays,  p.  58). 

a  Kant  holds  that  the  inner  sense  gives  no  intuition  of  the  soul  as  an  object.  "  Der 
innere  Sinn,  vermittelst  dessen  das  Gemuth  sich  selbst,  oder  seinen  inneren  Zustand 
anschaut,  giebt  zwar  keine  Anschauung  von  der  Seele  selbst,  als  einem  Object"  {Kr.  d. 
r.  V.  p.  34).  He  speaks  of  the  subject  envisaging  itself,  not  as  it  is  but  as  it  appears : 
"  Da  es  denn  sich  selbst  anschaut,  nicht  wie  es  sich  unmittelbar  selbstthatig  vorstellen 
wurde,  sondern  nach  der  Art  wie  es.von  innen  afficirt  wird,  folglich  wie  es  sich  erscheint, 
nicht  wie  cs  ist"  {Zw.  Aufg.  p.  718).  He  says  that  by  the  inner  sense  we  know  the  sub- 
ject self  as  phenomenon,  and  not  as  it  is  in  itself;  "  Was  die  innere  Anschauuug  betrifft, 
iinser  eigeces  Subject  nur  als  Er.scheinung,  nicht  aber  nach  dem,  was  es  an  sich  selbst 
ist,  erkennen"  {Ibid  p.  850).  Dr.  Jlansel  has  done  great  service  to  philosophy  by  main- 
taining so  clearly  and  resolutely,  in  his  Prohrjomcna  Logica  and  Metaphysics,  that  we 
intuitively  know  self.  "  I  am  immediately  conscious  of  myself  seeing  and  hearing,  will- 
iiic  and  thinkin"-"  {Prol.  Log.  p.  12'.)).  Hamilton  speaks  of  our  being  conscious  every  mo- 
ment of  our  existence,  and  of  the  ego  as  a  "  self-subsistent  entity"  {Mdaph.  Lect.  ID). 


BOOK  I.]  SPIRIT.  129 

discover  is  a  mere  idea,  impression,  phenomenon,  or  quality  of  an 
unknown  tiling,  I  ask  liim  for  his  evidence,  and  he  must,  in  reply- 
ing, call  in  the  internal  sense,  and  I  can  then  show  him  that  this 
sense,  or  cognitive  power  (for  it  is  not  a  sense  except  in  an  abusive 
application  of  the  term),  declares  that  we  know  a  something,  or 
thing  with  a  positive  existence. 

This  is  a  knowledge  which  cannot  be  explained,  nor  defined  in 
the  sense  of  being  resolved  into  anything  simpler  or  founded  on 
anything  deeper.  It  is  a  simple  element  implied  in  every  intelli- 
gent act,  and  not  derived  from  any  other  act  or  exercise.  It  is  a 
basis  on  whicli  other  knowledge  may  be  reared,  and  not  a  super- 
structure standing  on  another  foundation. 

As  it  is  a  primitive,  so  it  is  a  necessary  conviction.  We  cannot 
by  any  other  supposed  knowledge  undermine  or  set  aside  this 
fundamental  knowledge.  We  cannot  be  made  by  any  process  of 
speculation  or  ratiocination  to  believe  that  we  have  not  being. 
The  process  of  reasoning  which  would  set  aside  this  cognition  can 
plead  no  principle  stronger  than  the  conviction  which  we  have  in 
favour  of  tlie  reality  of  self. 

In  saying  that  we  know  self  as  possessed  of  being,  we  do  not 
mean  to  affirm  that  we  know  all  about  self,  or  about  our  spiritual 
nature.  There  are  mysteries  about  self,  as  about  everything  else 
we  know,  sufficient  to  awe  every  truly  wise  man  into  humility. 
All  that  is  meant  is,  that,  whatever  may  be  unknown,  we  always 
know  being  whenever  we  know  any  of  the  objects  presented  to  us 
from  within  or  from  without.  This  subject  will  be  resumed  in  a 
more  special  manner  in  next  Chapter. 

II.  We  know  self  as  not  depending  for  its  existence  on  our  obser- 
vation of  it.  Of  course  we  can  know  self  only  when  we  know  self ; 
our  knowledge  of  self  exists  not  till  wc  have  the  knowledge,  and 
it  exists  only  so  long  as  we  have  the  knowledge.  But  when  we  come 
to  know  self,  we  know  it  as  already  existing,  and  we  do  not  look 
on  its  continued  existence  as  depending  on  our  recognition  of  it. 

III.  Wc  know  self  as  being  in  itself  an  abiding  existence.  Not 
that  we  are  to  stretcli  this  conviction  so  far  as  to  believe  in  tlie 
sclf-existcncG  of  mind,  or  in  its   external   existence.      We  believe 

9 


130  PBIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

certainly  in  tlic  permanence  of  mind  independent  of  our  cognition 
of  it,  and  amidst  all  the  shiftings  and  variations  of  its  states.  Yet 
this  does  not  imply  that  tlicre  never  was  a  time  when  self  was 
non-existing.  For  aught  this  conviction  saj^s,  there  may  have  been 
a  time  when  self  came  into  existence — another  conviction  assures 
us  that  when  it  did,  it  must  have  had  a  cause.  It  must  be  added 
that  this  conviction  does  not  go  the  length  of  assuring  us  that 
mind  must  exist  for  ever,  or  that  it  must  exist  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  body.  Intuition  does  indeed  seem  to  say  that,  if  it  shall  cease 
to  exist,  it  must  be  in  virtue  of  some  cause  adequate  to  destroy  it ; 
and  it  helps  to  produce  and  strengthen  the  feeling  which  the  dying 
man  cherishes  when  he  looks  on  the  soul  as  likely  to  abide  when 
the  body  is  dead.  But  as  to  whether  the  dissolution  of  the  bodily 
frame  is  a  sufficient  cause  of  the  decease  of  the  soul, — as  to  whether 
it  may  abide  when  the  bodily  frame  is  disorganized, — this  is  a 
question  to  be  settled  not  altogether  by  intuition,  but  by  a  number 
of  other  considerations,  and  more  particularly  by  the  conviction 
that  God  will  call  us  into  judgment  at  last,  and  is  most  definitely 
settled,  after  all,  l)y  the  inspired  declarations  of  the  Word  of  God. 
But  it  is  pleasant  to  observe  that  there  is  an  original  conviction 
altogetlier  in  unison  with  this  derivative  belief,  a  conviction  lead- 
ing us  to  look  on  self  as  permanent,  unless  there  be  a  cause  working 
adequate  to  its  dissolution. 

According  to  the  views  presented  under  these  heads,  the  exist- 
ence of  self  is  a  position  to  be  assumed,  and  not  to  be  proven.  It 
does  not  need  proof,  and  no  proof  should  be  offered ;  no  mediate 
evidence  could  possibly  be  clearer  than  the  truth  which  it  is 
brought  to  support.  It  has  been  keenly  disputed  how  we  are  to 
understand  the  "  Cogito,  ergo  sum,"  of  Descartes.  Are  we  to  regard 
it  as  a  process  of  reasoning?  If  it  be  so,  it  is  either  ^  jpetitio 
principii,  or  its  conclusiveness  may  be  doubted.  If  the  cogito  be 
understood  as  embracing  ego,  that  is,  be  understood  as  ego  cogito, 
then  the  ego  is  evidently  involved  in  it,  is  in  fact  assumed.  If  it 
means  anything  short  of  this,  then  it  might  be  difficult  to  establish 
the  accuracy  of  the  inference  ;  thus,  if  the  cogito  does  not  embrace 
the  ego,  it  is  not  clear  that  the  conclusion  follows.*     Or  are  we  to 

'  Kant  bas  a  powerful  criticism  if  the  "  Cogito,  ergo  gum,"  considered  as  an  argument,  ia 
bis  ParaloEcismen  in  the  Kritih, 


BOOK  I.]  SPIRIT.  131 

regard  the  statement  as  a  sort  of  primitive  judgment,  not  implying 
mediate  reasoning  or  a  middle  term  ?'  Taken  in  this  sense,  I 
would  reckon  that  the  connexion  between  thought  and  existence 
is  involved  in  our  knowledge  of  self  as  existing,  rather  than  that 
the  knowledge  of  self  issues  from  the  perception  of  the  connexion 
between  thought  and  personal  existence.  Or  are  we  to  look  on 
the  expression  as  simply  a  mode  of  stating  an  assumption  ?  In 
this  case  the  word  ergo,  the  usual  symbol  of  inference,  comes  in 
awkwardly  ;  and  besides,  the  truth  to  be  assumed  is  not  the  com- 
plex judgment,  cogiio,  ergo  sum,  but  the  fact  revealed  at  once  to 
consciousness  of  ego  cogitans.''  This  primitive  cognition  may  be 
the  ground  of  a  number  of  judgments,  but  it  is  to  reverse  the  order 
of  things  entirely  to  make  any  one  of  these  judgments  the  ground 
of  the  cognitions. 

The  cognitions  which  have  been  unfolded  in  this  chapter,  form, 
when  memory  begins  to  be  exercised,  the  ground  of  our  recognition  of 
our  personal  identity,  and  lead  us  to  believe  in  a  self  which  abideth 
amid  all  changes  of  thought  and  mood  and  feeling.  This  subject 
will  be  resumed  by  us  under  tlic  head  of  Primitive  Judgments. 

IV.  "We  know  self  as  exercising  potency.  We  have  seen  that 
we  know  it  as  having  being  ;  but  we  know  it  further  as  having 
active  being.  We  know  it  as  acting,  we  know  it  as  being  acted 
on,  we  know  it  as  tlie  source  of  action.'  Even  in  sense-perception 
we  knoAV  it  as  being  acted  on  from  without;  nay,  we*  know  it  as 
itself  acting  in  producing  the  result.  So  far  as  we  know  objects 
acting  on  it,  we  know  it  as  capable  of  being  influenced  ;  in  other 
words,  as  having  a  capacity  of  a  particular  description.     So  far  as 

>  In  answering  the  objections  of  Gassendi,  Descartes  savs :  "Cum  advertimus  nos  esse 
res  cogitantes,  prima  quiedam  uotio  est  quse  et  nullo  syllogiamo  concluditur  ;  neque  etiam 
quis  dicit  '  Ego  cogito,  ergo  sum,  sire  existo,'  exislentiam  ex  cogitatione  per  syllogismum 
deducit,  sed  tanquam  rem  per  se  notam  simplici  mentis  intuitu  agnoscit."  See  the  subject 
discussed  b}'  Cousin,  Prem.  Ser.  torn.  i.  Ie9.  vi. 

'  "  C'est  par  une  mcme  perception  de  notre  ilme  que  nous  eprouvons  le  sentiment  intime 
et  de  notre  pensee  et  de  notre  existence"  (Buffier,  Prem.  Ver.  p.  i.  c.  i). 

3  Sir  W.  Uamilton  admits  all  I  am  pleading  for.  "  I  know  myself  as  a  force  in  energy, 
the  not-self  as  a  counter-force  in  energy"  (Note  D,  p.  666,  of  Ap.  to  Reid).  And  again  : 
"  We  have  a  i)erception  proper,  of  the  secundo-primary  quality,  of  resistance  in  an  extra- 
organic  force  as  an  immediate  cognition"  (p.  8S3).  Is  this  statement  an  essential  part  of 
his  doctrine,  or  an  incidental  admission  ?  If  part  of  his  system,  it  should  modify  the  view 
he  has  given  elsewhere  of  our  conviction  of  power  as  being  a  mere  impotcncy  (sec  Appendix 
to  Dkcuss.)  If  it  be  inadvertent,  it  is  a  proof  that  truth  will  come  out  of  honest  men,  in 
Bpite  of  the  errors  of  their  system. 


132  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ir 

wc  know  it  acting-  in  producing  changes  in  itself  or  other  tilings, 
we  know  it  as  a  potency,  as  having  power.  When  we  recollect, 
wlien  wo  fix  the  thoughts  on  a  particular  object,  when  we  fonilly 
dwell  on  a  particular  scene,  we  arc  exercising  power,  and  Ijy  con- 
sciousness we  know  that  we  are  doing  so.  When  in  consequence 
of  coming  to  know  of  events  bearing  upon  us  personally, —  say  of 
some  blessing  about  to  descend,  or  calamity  about  to  befall, — we 
rejoice  or  grieve,  we  experience  an  effect.  This  conscious  potency 
is  especially  felt  in  all  exercises  of  the  will,  whether  it  be  directed 
to  the  mental  action  which  wc  wish  to  stay  or  quicken,  or  the 
bodily  organism  which  we  propose  to  move.  I  demur,  indeed,  to 
the  view  maintained  by  some  philosophers  of  eminence,  tliat  our 
idea  of  power  is  obtained  exclusively  from  the  consciousness  of 
the  power  of  will  over  the  muscles.  But  I  am  persuaded  that  our 
most  vivid  conviction  of  power  is  derived  from  the  influence  of 
the  will  both  on  bodily  and  mental  action,'  and  that  the  influence 
of  the  will  on  the  organism  is  what  enables  us  to  connect  mental 
with  bodily  action. 

But  here  it  will  be  necessary  to  ofier  an  explanation  to  save 
ourselves  from  obvious  difficulties,  which  many  have  not  seen 
their  way  to  overcome.  We  shall  find,  under  another  head,  that 
while  we  believe  intuitively  that  every  effect  has  a  cause,  we  do 
not  know  by  intuition  what  the  cause  is  apart  from  experience  ; 
and  that  while  we  are  convinced  that  the  cause  produces  the 
efi'ect,  it  is  only  by  experience  we  know  what  the  effect  is.  It 
follows  that  we  do  not  know  intuitively  what  or  how  many  powers 
must  concur  to  produce  a  given  effect.  This  qualification  will  be 
found  to  have  a  great  significance  imparted  to  it  by  the  circum- 
stance to  be  afterwards  noticed,  tliat  in  order  to  most  creature 
effects  there  is  need  of  a  concurrence  of  causes,  or  of  a  concause. 
When  I  will  to  move  my  arm,  I  know  tliat  the  will  is  one  of  the 
elements  in  producing  tlie  effect,  but  I  do  not  know,  till  physiology 

1  T'uis  is  substiuitially  tlie  view  of  Locke,  who  s;iys,  "Bodies  by  our  senses  do  not  afford 
us  so  clear  and  distinct  an  idea  of  active  power  as  we  have  from  reflection  on  the  operations 
of  our  own  mind."  In  derivincr  our  idea  of  Power  from  Sensation  and  Reflection,  he  sup- 
poses the  mind  to  be  actively  and  intelligently  exercised.  "  Whatever  change  is  observed, 
the  mind  must  collect  a  power  somewhere  to  make  that  change"  {Essay,n.x\\.  A).  But 
Locke  has  omitted  to  inquire  what  it  is  in  the  mind  which  insists  that  it  must  collect  a  civso 
wherever  there  is  a  change. 


BOOKi.]  SPIRIT.  133 

tells  mo,  now  many  others  must  cooperate.  It  follows  that  one 
of  the  elements  of  a  complex  cause  may  act  and  no  effect  follow, 
Lecause  one  part  of  the  concause  is  absent.  I  may  will  to  take  a 
cheerful  view  of  everything,  and  yet  not  be  able  owdng  to  the  rise 
of  gloomy  thoughts.  I  may  will  to  move  my  arm,  and  yet  the  arm 
may  not  move,  because  paralysis  has  cut  off  the  concurrence  of 
the  organism.  This  subject  will  again  come  before  us  under  various 
aspects. 

V.  "We  know  the  knowing  mind  to  be  diiferent  from  the  material 
object  known,  whether  this  be  the  organism  as  affected  or  the 
object  affecting  it.  Not  that  we  know  by  intuition  wherein  the 
difference  lies ;  not  that  we  are  in  a  position  to  say  whether  they 
may  not,  after  all,  have  points  of  resemblance,  and  a  mutual 
dependence,  and  a  reciprocal  influence :  on  these  points  our  only 
guide  must  be  a  gathered  experience.  But  in  every  act  in  which 
we  know  a  bodily  object,  we  know  it  tq_  be  different  from  self,  and 
self  to  be  different  from  it.  This,  is  a  conviction  which  we  can 
never  lose,  and  of  which  no  sophistry  can  deprive  us.  We  carry 
it  with  us  at  all  times,  and  wherever  we  go.  It  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  any  man  to- confound  himself  with  the  universe,  or  the 
universe  with  him.  IMan  may  mistake  one  external  object  for  an- 
other, but  it  is  not  possible  that  he  should  mistake  an  external  object 
for  himself,  or  identify  himself  with  any  other  object.  This  convic- 
tion is  thus  a  means,  as  shall  be  shown  later  in  the  treatise,  of  deliv- 
ering us  from  the  more  common  forms  of  idealism,  and  from  every 
form  of  pantheism. 

YI.  We  know  self  in  every  one  of  its  states,  as  these  pass  before 
self-consciousness.  And  herein  lies  an  important  difference  be- 
tween tlic  knowledge  we  have  of  mind,  and  the  greater  portion  of 
the  knowledge  we  have  acquired  of  the  material  universe.  The 
knowledge  w^hich  we  have  of  matter  by  intuition  is  extremely 
limited.  What  we  thus  know,  indeed,  i^  supremely  valuable,  as 
the  ground  on  whicli  we  erect  all  our  otlicj-  information  ;  still  it  is 
in  itself  very  narrow,  being  confined  to  an  acquaintance  with  our 
organism  as  extended  and  as  exercising  an  influence  on  the  mind, 
and  to  objects  immediately  in  contact  witli  it.     The  greater  part 


134  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

even  of  the  knowledge  wliicli  we  have  of  our  organism,  and  of 
objects  in  contact  with  it,  is  derivative  ;  and  there  is  a  process  of 
inference  in  all  that  we  know  of  objects  at  a  distance, — of  sun,  moon, 
stars,  of  hills,  rivers,  valleys,  and  of  the  persons,  and  countenances, 
and  conversations  of  our  friends.  But  in  regard  to  our  own  minds, 
■we  know  all  the  individual  facts  directly  and  intuitively.  We  gaze 
at  once  on  the  mind  thinking,  imagining,  feeling,  resolving.  In 
this  view  it  may  be  safely  said  that  we  know  more  of  certain  of 
the  states  and  of  the  action  of  the  mind  than  we  know  of  the  whole 
material  universe,  even  in  this  age  of  advanced  science.  It  should 
be  added,  in  order  to  save  the  remark  from  appearing  to  some 
incredibly  extravagant,  that  while  we  thus  know  spontaneously 
so  much  about  the  workings  of  the  mind,  the  majority  of  men 
think  far  more  about  their  objective  than  their  subjective  knowl- 
edge. It  should  be  further  added,  that  while  we  are  ever  growing, 
more  than  people  wlio  have  not  thought  on  the  subject  imagine,  in 
the  knowledge  of  our  mental  affections,  yet  there  are  greater 
difficulties  in  adding  to  our  original  stock  in  the  mental  than  iu 
the  material  world. 

It  is  the  office  of  psychology,  as  a  science,  to  observe  wherein  the 
states  of  mind  which  fall  under  consciousness  agree  and  wherein 
they  differ,  and  to  endeavour  to  arrange  and  classify  them.  In 
conducting  this  its  work,  all  the  facts  are  discovered  by  conscious- 
ness as  an  intuitive  faculty.  Our  sensations,  our  perceptions,  our 
elaborated  thoughts,  our  moral  cognitions,  our  emotions,  our 
wislics,  our  volitions,  and  all  our  necessary  convictions,  are  under 
our  immediate  view.  But  it  is  to  be  carefully  observed  tliat  the 
classification  is  a  work  of  discursive,  and  not  of  intuitive  thought. 
We  know  our  thoughts  and  feelings,  but  not  as  thoughts  or  feel- 
ino-s.  As  to  how  we  are  to  arrange  tliem,  and  as  to  what  is  the 
best  classification  of  our  mental  states,  this  is  a  question  not  for 
intuition,  but  for  mental  science,  looking  to  the  facts  which  con- 
sciousness makes  known.s  We  are  conscious,  not  of  faculties,  but 
merely  of  individual  energies,  which  we  compare  and  arrange 
under  certain  heads  as  faculties.  It  is  important  to  state  here 
once  more  that  we  are  conscious  of  the  intuitions  of  the  mind  as 
individual  energies,  and  not  as  abstract  forms  or  general  laws. 


iiOOKi.]ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.       135 


CHAPTER   II. 
ANALYSIS   OF  OUR  PRIMITIVE   COGNITIONS. 

SECT.  l.-{rr.ELIMIXARY.)—0^    THE    NATURE    OF    ABSTRACTION    AND 
GENERALIZATION. 

As  ABSTRACTION  and  generalization  perfomi  so  imj)ortant  a  part  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  a  'priori  notions  and  maxims  out  of  the  concrete  and  individual  con- 
victions, it  will  be  necessaiy  to  explain  the  natui-e  of  these  processes,  the  more 
so  as  a  defective  account  has  often  been  given  of  them. 

It  is  not  so  generally  announced,  nor  so  frequently  observed  as  it  should  be, 
that  man's  mind  begins  with  the  concrete,  and  thence  reaches  the  abstract,  that 
is,  it  first  knows  or  contemplates  an  object  with  the  ciualities  presenting  them- 
selves, and  it  afterwards  learns  to  consider  the  object  apart  from  any  particular 
quality,  or  the  quality  apart  from  the  object.  The  statement  now  made,  does 
not  imply  that  man's  j)rimai7  knowledge  is  complex.  The  complex  is  not  the 
same  as  the  concrete.  In  complex  knowledge  man  has  mingled  several  cognitions 
which  are  simple  ;  but  to  man  the  concrete  is  the  simple.  His  primary  knowl- 
edge is  of  objects  with  certain  qualities  which  he  may  subsequently  be  able  to 
separate  and  distinguish.  Thus  by  the  eye  he  gets  a  knowledge  of  the  bodies 
before  him  as  at  one  and  the  same  time  extended  and  coloured.  By  the  mus- 
cular sense,  or  locomotive  energy,  he  knows  objects  as  extended,  movable,  and 
resisting  energy.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  when  the  memory  recalls  au 
object,  it  always  presents  it  in  the  concrete,  that  is,  with  qualities  which  can  be 
separated.  We  cannot  even  imagine  an  object  except  in  the  concrete  ;  we  can- 
not picture  to  ourselves  an  extended  surface  without  giving  it  colour  of  some 
kind,  and  we  cannot  imagine  a  colour  except  on  an  extended  surface. 

With  this  primary  knowledge  and  these  representations  in  possession,  the 
mind  proceeds  to  abstract,  and  is  urged  to  do  so  by  a  native  intellectual  impulse. 
It  can  separate  in  thought  the  qualities  from  the  object,  or  one  quality  from 
another,  say  the  colour  from  the  form. 

Abstraction  may  be  considered  in  a  wider  or  in  a  narrower  sense.  It  may  be 
regarded,  in  an  extended  sense,  as  that  operation  of  mind,  in  which,  to  use  the 
language  of  Whateley,  "  we  draw  off  and  contemplate  separately  any  part  of  an 
object  presented  to  the  mind,  disregarding  the  rest  "  {Logic,  Anal.  Out.)  In  this 
more  general  sense  the  parts  may  exist  separately  as  well  as  tlie  whole ;  thus, 
having  seen  a  judge  with  his  wig,  we  can  not  only  separate  in  thought  the  wig 
from  the  judge,  but  the  wig  can  in  fact  be  separated  from  the  wearer.  In  a  nar- 
rower sense,  abstraction  is  that  operation  of  mind  in  which  we  contemplate  the 


13G  PRBIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

qualitj'  of  an  object  separately  from  tlie  object.  "  An  abstract  name,"  says  Mr. 
Mill  (Lo'jIc,  Book  i.  Chap,  ii.),  "  is  a  name  wliicli  stands  for  an  attribute  of  a 
thing"  In  this  sense  tlie  part  separated  in  thought  cannot  be  separated  from 
the  object  in  fact.  Colour  may  be  thought  of  (not  seen  or  imagined)  apart  from 
an  extended  body,  but  cannot  exist  apart  fi'om  a  coloured  object. 

It  is  a  very  common  expression  that  our  abstractions  are  in  no  sense  realities. 
I  wish  at  this  early  stage  of  the  investigations  to  be  prosecuted  in  this  treatise, 
to  set  myseii"  against  this  view,  which  has  sometimes  been  positively  expressed, 
but  is  far  more  frequently  underlying  and  implied  in  statements  and  arguments 
■without  being  formally  announced.  I  lay  down  a  very  different  position,  that  if 
the  concrete  be  real,  and  the  abstraction  be  properly  made,  the  abstract  thing, 
that  is,  the  thing  contemplated  in  the  abstraction,  will  also  be  real.  I  may  never 
have  seen  a  bird  without  wings,  but  I  can  consider  the  wings  apart  from  the 
bird,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  wings  have  as  real  an  existence  as  the  bird  itself. 
This  will  be  admitted  at  once  in  regard  to  all  such  cases  as  this,  in  which  I  can 
in  fact  separate  the  pinions  from  the  body  of  the  fowl.  But  I  go  a  step  fm-ther, 
and  maintain,  that  even  in  cases  in  which  the  part  abstracted  cannot  be  separated 
in  reality  from  the  whole,  still  it  is  to  be  considered  as  real.  It  may  not  have, 
or  be  capable  of  having,  an  independent  reality,  but  still  it  has  a  reality.  I  can 
think  of  gravitation  apart  from  a  given  body,  or  from  the  chemical  affinity  of 
that  body ;  and  in  doing  so  I  do  not  suppose  that  it  can  exist  apart  from  body : 
still  the  gravitation  has  an  existence  just  as  much  as  the  body  has ;  it  has  not  a 
reality  independent  of  the  body,  but  it  has  a  reality  in  the  Ijody,  as  a  quality 
of  it.  The  same  remark  might  be  applied  to,  and  wiU  hold  good  of,  any  other 
abstraction.  No  doulat  if  the  original  concrete  object  be  imaginaiy,  the  abstrac- 
1-ion  formed  from  it  may  be  the  same  ;  I  can  separate  in  thought  the  beauty  of 
Venus  from  Venus  herself;  and  of  course,  as  Venus  is  ideal,  so  also  is  her  beauty. 
But  when  the  object  is  real,  and  I  abstract  or  separately  contemplate  what  has 
been  known  in  the  real,  then,  as  the  concrete  object  is  real,  so  is  also  the  part  or 
quality  abstracted  real ;  not  that  it  may  be  a  reality  capable  of  subsisting  in 
itself,  but  still  a  reality  in  the  object  as  a  quality  of  it. 

1  reckon  it  of  the  utmost  moment  to  make  this  remark.  The  view  here  pre- 
sented saves  us  on  the  one  hand  from  an  extreme  Realism,  Avhich  would  attrib- 
Tite  an  independent  reality  to  every  quality  abstracted,  which  would  for  example 
represent  beauty  as  a  separate  thing,  like  a  beautiful  scene  in  nature,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  from  what  is  more  important  in  our  present  inquiry,  from  regarding 
it  as  a  nonentity,  or  at  the  utmost  as  a  mere  form  or  creation  of  the  mind.'  "We 
are  ever  hearing  the  phrase  repeated  a  "  mere  abstraction  ;"  and  the  language  is 
applied  to  such  objects  as  space,  time,  beauty,  and  even  truth  and  moral  good. 
In  opposition  to  such  views,  I  maintain  that  abstraction  is  not  necessarily  con- 
cerned about  fictions  or  illusions.  Abstractions  are  not,  as  they  have  often  been 
represented,  the  attenuated  ghosts  of  departed  quantities  ;  they  may  rather  be 
represented  as  the  very  skeleton  of  the  l:)ody,  not  capable  of  action  alone,  but 

1  "  Concreta  vere  res  sint,  abstracta  non  sunt  res  sed  rorum  modi ;  modi  autem  nihil 
.aliud  sunt  quam  relationes  rei  ad  intellectum  seu  apparendi  facultates"  (Leibnitz  de 
Stilo  Philos.  Nkolli  Op.  p.  63).  In  tliis  as  in  other  matters,  Leibnitz  introduced  a  sub- 
jective tendency,  which  came  forth  in  full  manifestation  only  in  the  philosophy  of  Kant. 
In  the  midst  of  all  bis  extraragancies,  Hegel  returned  to  an  important  truth  when  he 
said  that  such  abstractions  as  Being  have  a  reality.  It  has  to  be  added,  that  be  has 
KivcQ  a  perversely  erroneous  account  of  the  nature  of  that  reality. 


BOOK  I.]    ANALYSIS  OF  PBUIITIYE  COGNITIONS.         137 

still  an  impcrtant  existence  in  tlie  body,  acting  vrftli  its  covering  of  flesli  and 
skin.  Abstraction  is  not  only  a  lofty  intellectual  exercise,  it  is  in  a  sense  a  cog- 
nitive act,  and  -when  tlie  concrete  object  looked  at  is  real,  it  will  give  us,  if  prop- 
erly conducted,  a  reality  in  the  part  separated.  As  to  wlietlier  this  part  is  or  is 
not  capable  of  a  separate  existence,  this  depends  on  the  nature  of  the  original 
concrete  cognition. 

Generalization  is  dependent  on  abstraction,  and  arises  out  of  it.  In  generali- 
zation we  contemplate  objects  as  possessing  a  common  attribute  or  attributes, 
and  put  together  all  that  ijossess  the  attribute  or  attributes.  A  general  notion 
is  a  notion  of  these  objects.  This,  expressed  in  language,  is  a  common  term, 
which  therefore  stands  for  an  indefinite  number  of  objects,  for  all  that  possess 
the  common  quality  or  qualities. 

As  abstractions  are  formed  out  of  concretes,  so  generalizations  are  formed  out 
of  individuals  or  singulars.  It  has  been  very  generally  allowed  by  i)hilosophers 
that  the  mind  begins  with  the  knowledge  of  individual  objects  or  scenes  pre- 
sented to  it.  Among  these  objects  it  may,  by  its  comparative  faculty,  discover 
resemblances.  In  some  cases  the  comparison  is  preceded  by  an  abstraction  of 
the  qualities  in  respect  of  which  the  objects  are  alike  ;  in  other  cases  it  may  be 
perceived  at  once  that  there  is  a  resemblance,  and  the  abstraction  of  the  points 
of  resemblance  may  follow.  In  all  cases,  both  the  discovery  of  resemblance  and 
abstraction  are  needful  to  generalization,  in  which  we  put  in  a  class,  and  usually 
call  by  a  common  name,  the  ol^jects  thought  to  resemble  each  other  in  certain 
respects,  and  so  far  as  they  resemble  each  other. 

I  am  prepared  to  lay  down  in  regard  to  generalization  a  proposition  similar 
to  that  Tf  hich  I  am  inclined  to  enforce  in  regard  to  abstraction.  When  the  indi- 
viduals are  real,  the  generalization  has  also  a  reality ;  that  is,  there  is  a  reality 
in  the  class.  True,  I  may  constitute  a  class  from  imaginary  individuals, — say  a 
class  of  griffins,  or  a  class  of  mermaids,  or  a  class  of  ghosts.  In  such  a  case  the 
general  is  as  unreal  as  the  singular.  But  if  my  generalization  is  from  real 
objects ;  if  it  is  a  generalization  made  of  objects  in  nature,  say  of  marbles,  or 
reptiles,  or  cruciferous  plants,  or  even  of  objects  of  human  workmanship,  such  as 
chairs,  or  houses,  or  churches,  then  the  intellectual  product  has  also  a  reality  in- 
volved. I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  general  exists,  or  can  exist,  as  an  indi- 
vidual thing,  like  the  singulars  which  it  embraces, — that  the  class  crocodile  has 
the  same  sort  of  existence  as  the  individual  crocodile, — but  I  maintain  that  it 
Las  a  reality  in  the  common  attributes  possesed  by  the  objects. 

In  al)straction,  the  reality  may  be  simply  that  of  an  attribute  in  an  individual 
object.  In  generalization,  it  is  the  possession  of  a  common  attribute  by  an  in- 
definite number  of  objects.  The  composition  of  marble  is  a  fact  quite  as  much, 
though  not  exactly  of  the  same  sort,  as  the  limestone  itself.  The  possession  of 
cold  blood,  and  of  the  three  heart-compartments,  is  a  reality  quite  as  much  as 
the  individual  crocodile  is.  The  possession  of  four  cross  petals  is  a  real  thing, 
just  as  a  particular  wild  mustard-plant  is.  The  structure  and  adaptation  to  a 
practical  use  of  chair,  house,  and  church,  are  not  fictitious  any  more  than  this 
chair,  or  this  house,  or  that  church  is.  This  account  preserves  us  on  the  one 
hand  from  an  extravagant  realism,  which  would  give  to  the  universal  the  same 
sort  of  reality  as  the  singular ;  and  on  the  other,  from  an  extreme  conccptualism 
or  nominalism,  which  v.'ould  place  the  reality  solely  in  the  conception  of  the 
mind,  or  in  the  name.  The  class  has  a  reality,  but  it  is  simply  in  the  jiossession 
of  common  qualities  by  an  indefinite  number  of  objects. 


138  PBUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ir. 

According  to  tins  view,  alistraction  and  generalization  are  processes  of  a  very 
high  order ;  they  are,  in  fiict,  essential  to  philosophy,  quite  as  much  so,  indeed, 
as  Plato  and  the  Schoolmen  supposed ;  "without  them  we  can  never  reach  the 
truths  on  which  the  higher  forms  of  wisdom  gaze.  They  always  pre-suppose, 
indeed,  that  something  has  been  given  them  ;  but,  acting  upon  this,  they  turn 
it  to  most  important  purposes,  and  if  they  start  with  realities  and  are  properly 
conducted,  they  are  ever  in  the  region  of  realities,  and  of  realities  of  the  highest 
kind.  We  shall  see  as  we  advance  that  all  philosophic  notions  and  maxims  are 
the  results  of  these  processes,  some  of  them  being  abstractions,  and  others  being 
also  of  the  nature  of  generalizations. 

SECT.  II.-ON    BEING. 

But  what  can  be  said  of  Being  ?  Verily,  little  can  be  said  of  it 
The  mistake  of  metaphysicians  lies  in  saying  too  much.  They 
have  made  assertions  which  have,  and  can  have,  no  meaning,  and 
landed  themselves  in  self  created  mysteries  or  in  contradictions. 
So  little  can  be  affirmed  of  Being,  not  because  of  the  complexity 
of  the  idea,  but  because  of  its  simplicity  ;  we  can  iind  nothing 
simpler  into  which  to  resolve  it.  We  have  come  to  ultimate  truth, 
and  there  is  really  no  deeper  foundation  on  which  to  rest  it. 
There  is  no  light  behind  in  which  to  show  it  in  vivid  outline. 

In  the  concrete  every  one  has  the  cognition  of  Being,  just  as 
every  man  has  a  skeleton  in  his  frame.  But  the  common  mind  is 
apt  to  turn  away  from  the  abstract  idea,  as  it  does  from  an  anatom- 
ical preparation  ;  or  rather,  it  feels  as  if  such  attenuated  notions 
belong  to  the  regions  of  ghosts,  where 

"  Entity  and  quiddity, 
The  ghosts  of  defunct  bodies,  fly." 

All  that  the  metaphysician  can  do  is  to  appeal  to  the  perception 

which  all  men  form,  to  separate  this  from  the  others  with  which 

it  is  joined,  and  make  it  stand  out  singly  and  simply,  that  it  may 

shine  and  be  seen  in  its  own  light,  and  with  this  the  mind  will  be 

satisfied : — 

"  Who  thinks  of  asking  if  the  sun  is  light, 
Observing  that  it  lightens  ?" 

Those  who  attempt  anything  more,  and  to  peer  into  the  object,  will 
find  that  the  light — like  that  of  the  sun — darkens  as  they  gaze 
upon  it.  "  When  I  burned  in  desire  to  question  them  further,  they 
made  themselves — air,  into  which  they  vanished." 


BOOKi.]  ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS,      139 

I  allow  that  the  abstract  notion  of  Being  is  one  wliich  the  mind 
is  not  inclined  spontaneously  to  fashion.  As  to  many  other  abstrac- 
tions, it  is  led  naturally  to  form  them  ;  they  are  framed  for  it,  or  it 
is  compelled  by  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  placed  to  frame 
them.  Thus  I  see  an  individual  with  a  black  coat  one  day,  and  with 
a  gray  coat  the  next,  and  I  cannot  but  separate  the  man  from  his 
clothing.  But  in  such  high  abstractions  as  Being,  that  which  we 
contemplate  is  never,  in  fact,  separated  from  any  one  thing.  Still 
Being  is  an  abstraction  which  we  are  constrained  to  make  for  philo- 
sophic purposes,  and  it  was,  in  fact,  formed  so  early  as  the  age  of  the 
speculators  of  the  Eleatic  School.  It  is  the  one  thing  to  be  found 
objectively  in  all  our  knowledge.  Hence  in  all  our  abstractions  it  is 
that  which  remains ;  in  the  ascending  process  of  generalization  it 
is  the  summum  genus.  This  does  not  prove  that  Being  can  exist 
apart  from  a  special  mode  of  existence,  or  the  exercise  of  some 
quality.  Nor  does  it  prove  that  we  can  know  Being  separate  from 
a  concrete  existence.  I  hold  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  of  these 
to  be  impossible.  But  in  all  knowledge  we  know  what  we  know  as 
having  existence,  which  is  Being. 

I  cannot  give  my  adhesion  to  the  opinion  of  those  who  speak 
so  strongly  of  man  being  incapacitated  to  know  Being.  I  have 
already  intimated  my  dissent  from  the  Kantian  doctrine  that  we 
do  not  know  things,  but  appearances  ;  and  even  from  the  theory 
of  those  Scottish  metaphysicians  who  affirm  that  we  do  not  know 
things,  but  qualities.  What  we  know  is  the  thing  manifesting 
itself  to  us, — is  the  thing  exercising  particular  qualities.  But  then 
it  is  confidently  asserted  that  we  do  not  know  the  "  thing  in  itself." 
The  language,  I  rather  think,  is  unmeaning ;  but  if  it  has  a  mean- 
ing, it  is  incorrect.  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  such  thing 
in  existence  as  Being  in  itself,  or  that  man  can  even  so  much  as 
imagine  it:  and  if  this  be  so,  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  know  it, 
and  desirable  that  we  should  not  suppose  that  we  know  it.  Of 
this  I  am  sure,  that  those  Neo-Platonists  who  professed  to  be  able 
to  rise  to  the  discovery  of  Being  in  itself  (which  could  only  be  the 
abstract  idea  of  Being),  and  to  be  employed  in  gazing  on  it,  liad 
miserably  bare  and  most  unprofitable  matter  of  meditation,  whether 
for  intellectual,  or  moral,  or  religious  ends.     But  if  any  one  mean 


UO  PRnilTIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

to  dcuy  that  wc  can  know  Being  as  it  is,  I  maintain  in  opposition 
to  him,  and  I  appeal  to  consciousness  to  confirm  mc  when  I  say, 
that  we  immediately  know  Being  in  every  act  of  cognition.  But 
then  we  arc  told  that  we  cannot  know  the  mystery  of  Being.'  I 
am  under  a  strong  impression  that  speculators  have  attached  a 
much  greater  amount  of  profundity  to  this  simple  subject  than 
really  belongs  to  it.  Of  this  I  am  sure,  that  much  of  the  obscurity 
which  has  collected  around  it  has  sprung  from  the  confused  dis- 
cussions of  metaphysicians,  who  have  laboured  to  explain  what 
needs  no  explanation  to  our  intelligence,  or  to  seek  a  basis  on 
which  to  build  what  stands  securely  on  its  own  foundation.  I  do 
indeed  most  fully  admit  that  there  may  be  much  about  Being  which 
we  do  not  know  ;  much  about  Being  generally,  much  about  every 
individual  Being,  unknown  to  us  and  unknowable  in  this  world. 
Still  I  do  affirm  tliat  we  know  Being  as  Being,  and  that  any  further 
knowledge  conveyed  to  us  would  not  set  aside  our  present  knowl- 
edge, but  would  simply  enlarge  it. 


SECT.   III.— ON  SUBSTANCE. 

All  that  the  metaphysician  can  do  in  regard  to  substance  is  to 
show  that  our  cognition  of  it  is  original  and  fundamental,  and  to 
evolve  what  is  contained  in  the  cognition.  He  should  not  attempt 
to  prove  how  it  is  so  and  so  (the  ^i-ori  of  Aristotle),  but  he  may 
show  that  it  is  so  and  so  (the  on  of  Aristotle).  He  could  not  give 
the  dimmest  idea  of  it  to  one  who  had  not  already  the  knowledge, 
but  he  may  separate  it  by  analysis  from  the  other  cognitions  with 
which  it  is  combined,  and  make  it  stand  out  distinctly  to  the  view. 
He  may  so  weigh  "and  measure  it  as  to  show  its  extent  and 
boundary,  and  deliver  it  from  those  crudities  in  which  speculators 

'  Kant  everywhere  speaks  of  our  not  knowing  the  "  Ding  an  sich."  See  in  the  Krltik, 
Antin.  Abs.  vi.  M.  Cousin  allows  to  Kant  that  we  have  not  a  consciousness  of  our  proper 
nature,  otherwise,  he  says  that  the  abysses  and  mysteries  of  existence  would  all  be  known ; 
but  to  save  himself  from  the  Kantian  consequences,  he  calls  in  reason  to  give  us  a  conviction 
of  self  and  personal  identity : — "  Nul  de  nous  n'a  conscience  de  sa  propre  nature,  sans  quoi 
les  abimes  de  I'existence  seraient  facilesa  sonder,  !es  mystferes  de  I'ame  nous  seraient  par- 
faitement  connus."  "  L'identite  personnelie  est  une  conviction  de  la  raison"  (S6r.  ii.  leQ. 
xviii).  It  were  surely  both  simpler  and  wiser  to  suppose  that  there  is  intelligence  in  con- 
Bciousness,  and  that  this  intelligent  consciousness  knows  self. 


BOOKi.]    ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.         Ill 

have  incrusted  it.     The  following  is  the  best  analysis  I  am  able  to 
furnish. 


I.  In  all  knowledge  of  substance  there  is  involved  Being  or 
Existence,  not  of  being  in  the  abstract,  but  of  something  in  being. 
This  Ave  have  seen  is  an  essential  element  in  our  cognition,  both 
of  mind  and  body.  The  mind  starts  with  knowledge,  and  with  the 
knowledge  of  things  as  having  been.  This  is  the  foundation,  the 
necessary  foundation  of  all  other  exercises.  If  the  mind  did  not  begin 
with  knowledge,  it  could  not  end  with  knowledge.  In  particular, 
if  it  had  not  knowledge  in  the  concrete,  it  never  could  reach  knowl- 
edge in  the  abstract.  If  there  were  not  a  knowledge  of  things  in  the 
premises  with  which  we  set  out,  there  never  could  be  knowledge  in 
the  conclusion.  But  having  knowledge,  obtained  by  intuition,  to  set 
out  with,  we  find  that  when  we  proceed  legitimately — that  is,  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  thought — in  our  discursive  exercises,  we  have 
always  reality  in  the  conclusion. 

II.  In  all  knowledge  of  substance  there  is  involved  Active 
Power.  We  cannot  know  self,  or  the  mind  that  knows,  except  as 
active,  that  is,  exerting  power,  or  as  being  affected.  Nor  can  we 
know  material  objects  except  as  exercising  or  suffering  an  influence 
— that  is  a  certain  kind  of  power.  They  become  known  to  us  as 
having  a  power  either  upon  ourselves  or  upon  other  objects,  and  we 
express  this  when  we  say  that  we  know  matter  by  its  properties. 

This  is  a  doctrine  which  has  been  opposed  by  a  large  school  of 
metaphysicians  that  have  felt  directly  or  indirectly  the  influence 
of  Descartes,  who  represented  extension  as  the  essence  of  matter. 
This  oversight  has  marred  their  whole  speculations,  and  landed 
them  in  innumerable  difficulties.  For  not  finding  power  in  our 
original  cognitions,  they  have  citlier  with  the  sceptic  Hume  denied 
that  we  have  any  sucli  cognition,  or  with  Kant  they  have  made  it 
a  foi-in  wliich  the  mind  imposes  on  objects.  Still  a  large  amount 
of  authority  can  be  pleaded  in  behalf  of  tlie  doctrine,  tliat  power 
is  involved  in  our  idea  of  substance.  It  is  tlie  expressed  view  of 
Locke.  It  is  maintained  by  Leibnitz  with  all  the  ingenuity  of  his 
speculative  genius.     Even  Kant  acknowledges  (tliough  from  the 


142  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

subjective  character  wliicli  he  ascribes  to  our  intuitive  convictions, 
he  can  turn  it  to  no  profitable  account)  that  cause  is  involved  in  our 
idea  of  substance.'  It  has  been  incidentally  admitted  by  many  who 
have  theoretically  denied  it. 

III.  There  is  involved  in  our  knowledge  of  substance  a  convic- 
tion of   its  having  a  Permanence.'      This    proposition   must  be 
very  guardedly  stated.      By  being    loosely  and  inaccurately   an- 
nounced, it  has  led  to   very  erroneous  and   dangerous   doctrines. 
But  there  is  a  truth  here,  if  we  could  only  properly  apprehend 
and  express  it.    A  substance  is  not  a  spectre  which  appeared  wlien 
we  began  to    see  it,  and  which  may  cease  to  exist  when  we  have 
ceased  to  view  it.     This  conviction  is  at  the  basis  of  the  belief  in 
the  abiding   nature  of  every  existing  thing,  amid  all  the  changes 
which  it  may  undergo.     However  a  piece  of  matter  may  be  beat 
or  cut  mechanically,  we  do  not  believe  it  to  be  destroyed.     How- 
ever it  may  be   evaporated  or  decomposed  by  heat  or   chemical 
processes,  we  are  not  convinced  that  it  is  annihilated.     When  the 
moisture  on   the  earth  disappears,  we   do  not   therefore  conclude 
that  it  has  vanished  into  nothing  ;  we  look  for  it  in  a  new  form, 
and  our  expectation  is  gratified  when  we  discover  it  in  the  vapour 
of  the  atmosphere  or  the  cloud.      When  fuel  is  put  on  the  fire  it 
gradually  disappears  from  the  view,  but  we  inquire   for   it   else- 
where, and  find  it  in  the  ashes  and  in  the  smoke.     Our  conviction 
of  the  abiding  nature  of  self  is  still  more  deeply  rooted  and  fixed. 
We  believe  in  its  continuance  amid  all  the  changes  of  thought  and 
sensation,  mood  and  feeling,  lethargy  and  activity. 

1  Locke  says  that  "  powers  make  a  great  part  of  our  complex  ideas  of  substances  ' 
(Essay,  ii.  xxiii.  7-10).  Leibnitz  says,  "  Jusqu'ici  rien  n'a  mieux  marque  la  substance  que 
la  puissance  d'agir"  {Op.  p.  4(i0).  The  language  of  Kant  is,  "  Diese  Causalitat  fahrt  auf 
den  Bofriff  der  Ilandlung,  diese  auf  den  Begriff  der  Kraft  und  dadurch  auf  den  Begriff 
der  Substanz."  "  Wo  Handlung  mitliin  Thatigkeit  und  Kraft  ist,  da  ist  auch  Substanz" 
(  Werl-e,  pp.  172,  173).     "  Die  Substanz  in  Raume  kennen  wir  nur  durch  Krafte"  (p.  218). 

2  Speaking  of  such  qualities  as  hardness,  Reid  says:—"  They  were  real  qualities  before 
they  were  perceived  by  touch,  and  continue  to  be  so  when  they  are  not  perceived  ;  for  if 
anv  man  will  aflirm  that  diamonds  were  not  hard  till  they  were  handled,  who  would  reason 
with  him  ?"  "  Our  sensations  suggest  to  us  a  sentient  being  or  mind  to  which  they  belong, 
a  sentient  being,  which  hath  a  permanent  existence,  although  the  sensations  are  transient 
and  of  short  duration,  a  being  which  is  still  the  same  while  its  sensations  and  other  opera- 
tions are  varied  ten  thousand  ways"  {Collected  Works,  pp.  120-122).  The  word  suggest^ 
taken  from  Berkeley  and  from  Locke,  was  appropriate  enough  as  used  by  idealists,  but 
comes  awkwardly  from  Reid,     The  word  should  have  been  Inow. 


BOOK  I.]  ANAL  YSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  CO  GNITIONS.       143 

Eut  Vnile  there  is  all  this  in  our  apprehension  of  substance, 
there  is  not  more  than  this,  and  the  errors  have  arisen  from  sup- 
posing that  tliere  is  more.  In  particular,  our  conviction  does  not 
require  us  to  believe  either  in  the  necessary  existence  of  every 
substance  or  in  its  indestructibility.  Our  intuition  does  not  say 
whether  it  has  or  has  not  been  created,  whether  it  does  or  does  not 
need  the  Divine  power  to  maintain  and  uphold  it,  whether  it  may 
or  may  not  be  destroyed.  It  does  not  entitle  us  to  affirm  that 
matter  must  have  existed  for  ever,  or  must,  if  formed,  have  been 
fashioned  out  of  preexisting  materials.  Nor  does  it  say  how  long 
it  has  existed,  or  how  long  it  will  exist.  An  analogous  intuitive 
conviction — that  of  cause — says  that  if  produced,  it  must  have 
been  produced  by  a  cause  ;  that  if  destroyed,  it  must  be  by  a  power 
independent  of  itself.  Hence  we  cannot  assert  positively,  when  we 
see  a  substance,  say  a  piece  of  burned  coal,  disappearing  from  our 
view,  that  it  must  still  exist,  for  in  i\\Q  operation  of  combustion 
there  may  have  been  a  power  to  destroy  it ;  all  that  we  can  affirm 
is,  that  the  substance  did  not  vanish  of  itself.  All  that  our  intui- 
tion guarantees  is,  that  in  itself  substance  has  permanence,  and 
that  if  destroyed,  it  must  be  by  something  ah  extra. 

By  this  limitation  we  are  saved  at  once  from  certain  pernicious 
consequences  which  were  drawn  from  the  doctrine  of  Descartes. 
According  to  him,  a  substance  is  that  which  subsists  of  itself, 
which  has  no  need  of  anything  from  without  in  order  to  its 
existence.'  Proceeding  on  this  definition,  Spinoza  laboured  to 
show  that  tliere  was  and  could  be  only  one  substance,  of  which 
everything  is  an  attribute  or  a  mode.  The  school  of  Descartes 
sought  to  save  themselves  from  this  pantheistic  consequence  by 
various  devices.  It  is  not  to  our  present  purpose  to  inquire 
whether  these  were  or  were  not  successful,  as  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  Descartes.  To  me  it  appears  that  we  must  amend 
the  definition  of  Descartes,  and  reject  the  definition  of  Spinoza,  and 
then  all  tlie  conclusions  founded  on  tliem  must  fall  to  the  ground. 

1  "  Per  substantiam  nihil  aliud  intelligere  possiimus,  quam  rem  qiuo  ita  existit,  ut  nulla 
alia  re  indigeat  ad  existendum.  Et  quidem  substantia  qiiro  nulla  plane  re  indigeat,  unica 
tantum  potest  intcllige,  nempe  Deus.  Alias  vero  omnes  non  nisi  ope  concursus  Dei 
existere  posse  percipimus"  {Prin.  Phil.  p.  i.  51).  He  speaks  of  created  substanoes  "  quod 
sint  res  quie  solo  Dei  concursu  egent  ad  existendum"  i^lbid.  52). 


144  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ir. 

"  I  uiidcrptiind,"  says  Spinoza,  "  by  substance,  that  wliicli  is  in 
itself,  and  conceived  by  itself ;  that  is  to  say,  that  of  which  the 
concept  can  be  formed  witliont  having  need  of  the  concept  of  any 
other  thing.""  There  is  a  whole  aggregate  of  things  jumbled  in 
this  deiinition.  That  which  is  in  itself  is  one  thing,  that  which  is 
conceived  by  itself  is  another  thing,  which  is  not  even  necessarily 
the  same  as  tliat  u^hich  is  given  as  an  explanation,  viz.,  that  of 
which  a  concept  can  be  formed  without  having  need  of  the  concept 
of  any  other  thing.  I  object  to  our  conviction  in  regard  to  sub- 
stance being  called  a  concept,  a  phrase  denoting  an  abstract  or 
general  notion  formed  by  a  discursive  process  of  the  understand- 
ing ;  the  conviction  is  an  intuition.  The  intuition  says  of  every 
substance  tliat  it  is  a  thing  or  reality,  but  it  does  not  say  whence 
the  reality  has  proceeded.  It  says  that  substance  has  power,  but  it 
does  not  say  whence  that  power.  No  doubt  a  substance  is  a 
thing  known  (not  merely  conceived)  in  itself,  but  the  same  may 
be  said  of  space  and  time,  and  everything  apprehended  intuitively. 
Having  removed  this  definition  out  of  the  way,  as  not  the  expres- 
sion of  our  intuitive  knowledge,  we  leave  the  whole  pantheism  of 
Spinoza  without  a  foundation.  I  am  certain  that  our  native  con- 
viction as  to  substance  gives  no  countenance  to  pantheism  of  any 
kind.  Our  intuition  says  that  substance  has  being,  but  it  does  not 
say  whether  it  is  dependent  or  independent  being.  It  says  that  it 
has  power,  but  it  does  not  say  that  it  is  underived,  or  whence  it  is 
derived.  It  says  that  it  has  permanence,  but  does  not  say  that  it 
has  not  been  created,  and  that  it  cannot  be  destroyed. 

According  to  the  account  now  given,  the  conscious  self  or  spirit 
must  be  a  substance.  We  know  it  as  having  being,  we  know  it  as 
having  power  and  permanence.  While  it  has  all  tliese,  it  is  to  be 
studiously  noticed  that  we  do  not  know  it  to  have  all,  or  indeed 
any,  of  these  independently.  For  auglit  our  intuition  says,  it  may 
be  dependent  for  all  of  these  on  the  creative  power  or  concurrent 
power  of  God.  Not  only  so,  it  may,  for  anything  our  intuition  in- 
timates, be  dependent  for  some  of  these  on  its  association  with  the 

1  "  Per  substantiam  intelligo  id  quod  in  se  est  et  per  se  concipitur ;  hoc  est  id  cujua 
conceptus  nou  indiget  conceptu  alterius  rei  a  quo  formari  debeat"  {Mkices,  p.  i.  def.  8, 
ed.  Bruder). 


BOOK  I.]  AJ^ALYSLS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.         145 

bodilj  organism  in  this  present  state  of  things.  If  we  -^ish  to 
settle  these  questions,  avc  must  look  to  other  circumstances  and 
considerations. 

Many  metaphysicians  have  felt  greater  difficulty  in  allowing 
that  matter  is  a  substance.  But,  explaining  substance  as  has  been 
done  in  this  section,  it  is  entitled  to  be  so  regarded.  It  too  has 
being,  power,  and  endurance.  We  can  deny  tliis  only  by  refusing 
to  follow  our  native  convictions.  But  in  standing  up  for  the 
substantial  nature  of  body,  it  is  still  more  necessary  than  in  the 
case  of  spirit,  to  bear  in  mind  the  qualifications  under  which  we 
make  the  statement.  We  cannot  affirm  of  matter  that  it  has  derived 
its  characteristics  from  no  source  independent  of  itself.  Nor  can  we 
declare  of  it  that  it  can  subsist  of  itself,  and  independent  of  the  co- 
operating power  of  mind,  that  is,  the  Divine  Mind.  We  are  stretch- 
ing intuition  altogether  beyond  its  province,  if  we  make  it  pronounce 
oracular  decisions  on  any  such  questions. 

But  are  mind  and  matter  different  substances?  I  reply  that 
there  are  certain  positions  on  this  subject  which  can  be  defended 
against  all  opposition.  First,  in  the  cognition  of  the  knowing  mind, 
which  ever  coexists  with  our  cognition  of  matter,  we  always  know 
the  two  to  be  different.  When  we  look  at  these  hills  we  have 
ever  an  accompanying  cognition  of  self  as  looking  at  the  hills, 
and  we  know  the  hills  to  be  different  from  self,  and  self  to  be 
different  from  the  hills.  Secondly,  we  know  that  the  very  things 
by  which  substance  is  characterized — existence,  potency,  and  per- 
manence— are  not  the  same  in  the  case  of  mind  and  body.  Thus 
the  being  of  mind  is  not  the  same  with  that  of  matter,  nor  are 
the  powers  of  mind  the  same  with  those  of  matter,  nor  does  the 
permanence  of  body  depend  on  human  beings  observing  it,  nor 
can  it  be  shown  that  the  permanence  of  mind  depends  on  the  per- 
manence of  the  bodily  frame.  With  these  proofs  or  presumptions 
in  our  favour,  we  may  surely  throw  the  onus  prohandi  of  proving 
that  they  are  the  same  substance  on  our  opponents.  But  thirdly,  all 
attempts  to  resolve  mind  into  matter,  or  matter  into  mind,  have 
utterly  failed.  If  we  deny  that  matter  has  an  existence  indepen- 
dent of  the  contemplative  mind,  we  are  trampling  on  one  of  the 
intuitions  of  our  nature.  Those  who  resolve  mind  into  matter  always 
10 


146  PBIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

overlook  the  very  essential  qualities  of  the  knowing,  the  conscious, 
the  thinking,  the  moral,  the  responsible  soul.  We  are  thus  enti- 
tled, from  all  "svc  can  know  of  substance,  to  declare  tliem  to  bo 
different  substances.  As  to  whether  tliey  may  not,  after  all,  have 
some  unity  in  the  view  of  higher  intelligences,  who  take  a  deeper 
view  of  substance,  this  is  a  question  which  wc  need  not  start,  for 
we  cannot  settle  it ;  the  alleged  unity  must  be  sucli  that  we  can 
never  discover  nor  comprehend  it.  It  is  enough  for  us  that  they 
are  different  substances  in  all  the  characteristics  of  substance 
known  to  us. 

Sir  W.  Hamilton'  remarks  that  the  word  "  substance"  {suistantia) 
may  be  "  viewed  as  derived  from  suhsistendo,  and  as  meaning  ens 
jper  se  suhsistens  {ovaia,  in  Greek) ;  or  it  may  be  viewed  as  the  basis 
of  attributes,  in  which  sense  it  may  be  regarded  as  derived  from  sub- 
stanch,  and  id  quod  substat  accidentibus  ;  like  the  Greek  v-ooTaaig, 
vnOiceliiEvov.  In  either  case  it  will,  however,  signify  the  same  thing, 
viewed  in  a  different  aspect."  With  this  latter  statement  I  can- 
not concur.  In  the  first  of  these  senses  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
substance,  and  its  characteristics  can  be  specified.  But  I  can  see 
no  evidence  whatever  for  the  existence  of  any  such  thing  as  a 
substance  in  the  other  sense,  that  is,  as  a  sidjstratum  lying  in  and 
beyond,  or  standing  under,  all  that  comes  under  our  immediate 
knowledge."     There  is  no  topic  on  which  there  has  been  a  greater 

1  Metaph.  Lect.  S,  wliere  are  admirable  defiuitions  of  terms. 

2  "If  any  one  will  examine  himself  concerning  his  notion  of  pure  substance  in  general, 
be  will  find  that  he  has  no  other  idea  of  it  all,  but  only  a  supposition  of  he  knows  not 
what  support  of  such  qualities  which  are  capable  of  producing  simple  ideas  in  us ;  which 
qualities  are  commonlj'  called  accidents"  (Locke,  Esaaij,  ii.  xxiii.  23).  His  view  is  thus 
fully  expounded    in    his  Letter  to  Stillincifleet : — "Your    Lordship   well    expresses    it, — 

We  find  that  zoe  can  have  no  true  conception  of  any  inodes  or  accidents,  hut  we  must  con- 
ceive a  substratum  or  subject  wherein  tliey  are:  i.e.,  that  they  cannot  exist  or  subsist  of 
themselves.  Hence  the  mind  perceives  their  necessary  connexion  with  inherence  or  being 
supported;  which  being  a  relative  idea,  superadded  to  the  red  colour  in  a  cherr}',  or  to 
thinking  in  a  man,  the  mind  frames  the  correlative  idea  of  a  support.  For  I  never  denied 
that  the  mind  could  frame  to  itself  ideas  of  relation,  but  have  showed  the  quite  contrary  in 
my  chapters  about  relation.  But  because  a  relation  cannot  be  founded  on  nothing,  or  be  the 
relation  of  nothing,  and  the  thing  here  related  as  a  supporter  or  support  is  not  represented 
to  the  mind  by  any  clear  and  distinct  idea,  therefore  the  obscure,  indistinct,  vague  idea  of 
thing  or  something  is  all  that  is  left  to  be  the  positive  idea  which  has  the  relation  of  a  sup- 
port or  substratum  to  modes  or  accidents  ;  and  that  general  undetermined  idea  of  something 
is  by  the  abstraction  of  the  mind  derived  also  from  the  simple  ideas  of  Sensation  and  Reflec- 
tion ;  and  thus  the  mind,  from  the  positive  simple  ideas  got  by  sensation  or  reflection,  comes 
to  the  general  relative  idea  of  substance;  which  without  these  positive  simple  ideas  it  could 
Dever  have."     I  have  quoted  this  passage  because  it  lets  us  see  fully  what  Locke's  precise 


BOOK  I.]    .LyALYSIS  OF  PEBHTIVU  COGNITIONS.         147 

amount  of  unsatisfactory  language  employed  than  on  this.  'We 
know  it  is  said,  only  qualities,  but  we  are  constrained  by  reason,  or 
by  common  sense,  to  believe  in  a  something  in  which  they  inhere. 
Or  qualities,  it  is  said,  fall  under  sense,  while  substance  is  known  by 
vovc  or  reason.  Others,  proceeding  on  these  admissions,  maintain 
that  qualities  alone  being  known,  we  may  doubt  whether  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  substance,  and  may  certainly  affirm  that  we  can 
never  know  it.  Now  in  opposition  to  all  this  style  of  thinking 
and  writing,  which  has  prevailed  to  so  great  an  extent  since  the 
days  of  Locke,  I  maintain  that  we  never  know  qualities  without 
also  knowing  substance.  Qualities,  as  qualities  distinct  from  sub- 
stance, are  as  much  unknown  to  us  as  substance  distinct  from 
qualities.  We  shall  sliow  in  next  section  that  we  know  both  in 
one  concrete  act.  We  know  qualities  as  qualities  of  a  real  thing, 
having  being,  and  power,  and  permanence.' 

SECT.    IV.— ON   MODE,    QUALITY,   PROPERTY,   ESSENCE. 

Two  great  truths  press  themselves  on  the  reflecting  mind  when 
it  contemplates  this  world  of  ours.  One,  the  more  obvious,  is  the 
mutability  of  all  mundane  objects.  Nothing  seems  to  be  enduring, 
all  is  perceived  as  fluctuating.  This  has  been  a  favourite  theme 
with  poets,  to  whom  it  has  furnished  a  succession  of  kaleidoscope 

theory  is,  and  what  are  its  defects.  The  mind  gets  all  its  ideas  from  sensation  and  reflec- 
tion, but  in  comparing  ideas  it  discovers  necessary  relations.  Among  these  is  substance, 
of  which  the  idea  is  very  obscure.  Still  the  mind  is  led  to  suppose  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  acting  as  a  support  or  suhstratu?n. 

1  Berkeley  admits  the  existence  of  all  that  we  perceive:  "  That  what  I  see,  hear,  and 
feel  doth  exist,  that  is  to  say,  is  perceived  by  me,  I  no  more  doubt  than  I  do  of  my  own 
being."  But  he  adds  :  "  I  do  not  see  how  the  testimony  of  sense  can  be  alleged  as  a  proof 
of  the  existence  of  anything,  which  is  not  perceived  by  sense"  {Prin.  Hum.  Know.  40). 
In  particular,  he  is  not  satisfied  that  there  is  a  material  substratum  to  what  we  perceive 
or  a  support  of  it.  "  It  is  evident  support  cannot  here  be  taken  in  its  usual  or  literal 
sense,  as  when  we  say  that  pillars  support  a  building;  in  what  sense  therefore  must  it  be 
taken  ?  If  we  inquire  into  what  the  most  accurate  philosophers  declare  themselves  to 
mean  by  muterial  substance,  we  shall  find  them  acknowledge  they  have  no  other  meaning 
annexed  to  those  .'sounds  but  the  idea  of  being  in  general,  together  with  the  relative 
notion  of  its  supporting  accidents"  (10,  17).  Now  Berkeley  is  right  in  saying  that  we  are 
not  required  to  allow  the  existence  of  more  than  we  perceive.  But  (1.)  he  is  wrong  in 
maintaining  that  we  can  perceive  nothing  more  than  ideas  in  our  own  minds.  "When 
we  do  our  utmost  to  conceive  the  existence  of  external  bodies,  we  are  all  the  while  only 
contemplating  our  own  ideas"  (2S).  Then  (2.)  he  errs  in  not  unfolding  how  much  is  com- 
prised in  the  object  as  perceived  by  us ;  we  perceive  body  as  having  being,  power,  and 
existence  without  us  and  independent  of  us.     "  It  will  be  urged  that  thus  much  at  least 


148  PlUmTlVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

pictures  ;  moralists  and  divines  have  dwelt  upon  it,  in  order  to 
allure  us  to  seek  for  something  more  stable  than  this  world  can 
furnisli  ;  and  even  libertines  have  turned  it  to  their  own  use,  and 
cxliorted  us  to  catch  the  enjoyment  wliile  it  passes,  to  shoot  the 
bird  on  the  wing  :  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 
Philosophies  have  been  built  on  this  doctrine  of  the  fluctuation  of 
all  things.  Heraclitus  of  Ephesus  taught  that  all  things  are  in  a 
perpetual  flux  ;  that  avo  cannot  enter  the  same  stream  twice  ; 
whereon  Cratylus  rebuked  him,  and  showed  that  we  cannot  do  so 
once.*  But  there  is  another  truth  which  has  a  no  less  important, 
indeed  a  deeper  place  in  the  nature  of  things.  In  the  midst  of  all 
these  mutations  objects  have,  after  all,  a  permanence.  Ever  chang- 
ing, they  are  yet  all  the  while  ever  tlie  same.  Persons  of  deeper 
thought,  or  at  least  more  addicted  to  abstraction,  looking  beneath 
the  changing  surface,  dwell  on  this  permanence,  which  they  dis- 
cover to  be  like  the  fixed  mountain — while  the  changes  are  merely 
like  the  colours  that  pass  over  its  surface  ;  and  some  have  so 
magnified  it  as  to  make  it  set  aside  the  mutability.  The  Eleatics 
carried  their  doctrine  so  far  as  to  maintain  the  oneness  and  un- 
changeableness  of  all  being.  The  founder  of  the  school,  Xeno- 
phanes,  identified  this  immutable  oneness  with  the  Divine  Being. 
His   disciple,   Parmcnidcs,  degenerating  in   religious  faith,  though 

is  true,  to  wit,  tliat  we  take  away  all  corporeal  substances.  To  this  my  answer  is,  that  if 
the  word  substance  be  taken  in  the  vulgar  sense  for  a  combination  of  sensible  qualities, 
such  as  extension,  solidity,  weight,  and  the  like,  this  we  cannot  be  accused  of  taking 
away.  But  if  it  be  taken  in  a  philosophic  sense,  for  the  support  of  accidents  or  qualities 
without  the  mind,  then  indeed  I  acknowledge  that  we  take  it  away,  if  one  may  be  said  to 
take  away  that  which  never  had  any  existence,  not  even  in  imagination"  (37).  Berkeley 
was  misled  throughout  by  following  the  Lockian  doctrines  that  the  mind  perceives  im- 
mediately only  its  own  ideas,  and  that  substance  is  to  be  taken  merely  as  the  support  or 
substratum  of  qualities.  It  is  important  to  add  that  Berkeley  is  wrong  (as  Brown  also  is) 
in  holding  that  we  perceive  material  substance  "  as  a  combination  of  sensible  qualities." 
I  am  not  aware  that  intuitively  we  perceive  qualities  separately  or  a  combination  of  them, 
we  know  body  as  an  existing  thing  with  extension  and  solidity-  The  doctrine  of  Cousin 
is;  "Si  nous  cherchons  I'origine  de  I'idce  de  phenomone,  de  qualite,  d'attribut,  ello  nous 
est  donnee  par  les  sens  s'il  s^agit  d'un  attribut  de  la  substance  extcrieure ;  par  la  con- 
science, s'il  s'agit  d'un  attribut  de  I'ame.  Quant  a  la  substance,  qu'elle  soit  materielle 
ou  spirituelle,  elle  ne  nous  est  donnee-ni  par  les  sens  ni  par  la  conscience,  c'est  une  revela- 
tion de  la  raison  dans  I'exercice  des  sens  et  de  la  conscience"  (Ser.  ii.  t.  iii.  leg.  l',').  Sir 
W.  Hamilton  says,  that  when  we  think  a  quality  we  are  constrained  to  think  it  "  as  in- 
hering in  some  basis,  substratum,  hypostasis,  or  substance,"  which  substance  is  repre- 
sented as  unknown :  he  speaks  of  being  "compelled  to  refer  it  to  an  unknown  substance" 
'Discuss.  App.  I.  a).  I  hold  that  in  the  one  concrete  act  we  know  both  substance  and 
quality. 

1  Aristotle,  Met.  iii.  5,  G. 


BOOK  I.]  ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.      149 

superior  to  tlie  master  in  logical  power,  narrowed  tliis  unity  into 
metaphysical  being.  Zcno,  who  followed,  showed  his  subtlety  by 
pointing  out  the  difficulties  in  which  they  are  involved  who  main- 
tain the  existence  of  multiplicity  and  motion.  The  expansive  mind 
of  Plato  wrestled  with  both  these  extremes,  and  sought  by  his  doc- 
trine of  supra-sensible  ideas,  and  an  exhuberance  of  subtleties,  to 
establish  a  doctrine  of  being  not  inconsistent  with  multiplicity  and 
change.  In  modern  times  Descartes  and  Spinoza  have  magnified 
the  importance  of  Substance  quite  as  much  as  the  Eleatics  did 
Being,  while  the  great  mass  of  physicists,  and  all  the  speculators 
of  the  Sensational  School,  never  go  down  deeper  than  the  fleeting, 
the  superficial,  and  the  phenomenal. 

The  wise,  and  the  only  proper  course,  is  to  assume  both  ;  to 
assume  both  as  first  truths.  No  attempt  should  be  made  to  sup- 
port either  by  mediate  proof ;  each  carries  with  it  its  own  evidence. 
Neither  can  be  set  aside  by  any  sopliistical  reasoning  founded  on 
the  other.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophy  not  to  attempt  to  dis- 
card either,  but  rather  to  give  the  proper  account  of  each,  when 
they  will  be  seen  not  to  be  inconsistent.  The  doctrine  of  the  per- 
manence of  objects  is  founded  on  being  and  substance.  We  must 
take  a  view  of  the  other  truth  in  this  section. 

Every  substance,  we  have  seen,  is  known  as  having  being,  power, 
and  endurance.  But  every  terrestrial  substance  is  at  the  same 
time  known  as  changing.  Self  changes  as  we  look  in  upon  it-;  the 
material  world  changes  as  we  look  out  upon  it.  No  attempt  should 
be  made  to  explain  how  the  two  can  coexist,  the  permanent  and 
the  changeable.  For  mind  and  body  are  known  at  one  and  the 
same  time  as  both.  Tlie  one  is  quite  as  much  known,  and  there- 
fore quite  as  conceivable  ever  afterwards,  as  the  other ;  and  there 
can  be  no  difficulty  (whatever  mctapliysicians  may  ingeniously 
urge  in  opposition)  in  conceiving  of  their  compatibility,  since  they 
were  ever  known  to  exist  together.  It  is  one  of  the  permanent 
characters,  both  of  mind  and  body,  that  they  are  ever  known  as 
changing.  Their  liability  to  change  is  an  element  in  their  very 
nature.  Now  tlie  appropriate  term  to  express  the  given  state  of 
any  one  substance  is  Mode  ;  or  if  we  wish  a  convenient  change  of 
phraseology,  Modification^  State,  or  Condition. 


150  FRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

From  this  ac'count  we  see  in  wliat  sense  it  is  that  substance  im- 
plies mode,  and  mode  implies  substance.  Mode  implies  substance, 
not  only  inasmuch  as  a  state  must  be  the  state  of  something,  but 
inasmucli  as  mode  is  the  state  of  a  substance  liable  to  change,  and 
so  capable  of  manifesting  itself  in  more  than  one  phase.  Substance 
implies  mode,  inasmuch  as  it  must  always  be  in  a  certain  state, 
and  is  liable  to  be  in  different  states.  The  maxim  is  more  than  a 
verbal  one,  more  than  a  truism,  more  than  an  identical  (analytic), 
judgment  involved  in  the  terms  ;  it  is  a  judgment  affirming  a  truth 
intuitively  discovered  by  the  mind  when  looking  at  the  things  (a 
synthetic  judgment  a  i^riori). 

Every  object  is  known  not  only  as  having  being,  but  is  known 
as  having  a  certain  being  or  nature.  That  by  which  it  manifests 
itself  to  us  may  be  something  common  to  this  one  thing  with  other 
things,  or  it  may  be  something  peculiar  to  tlie  thing  itself.  Every 
particular  substance  known,  is  known  as  at  least  having  being  and 
potency  and  an  abiding  nature,  and  is  known  also  as  possessing 
peculiar  or  distinguishing  attributes.  That  by  which  the  object 
is  thus  known  to  us  as  in  itself,  or  as  acting  may  be  called  a 
quality  of  the  substance.  Sir  W.  Hamilton  speaks  of  the  quali- 
ties of  substance  as  "its  aptitudes  and  manners  of  existence 
and  of  action."  ^ 

But  let  us  properly  understand  the  relation  of  the  two,  substance 
and  quality.  The  two  are  ever  known  in  one  concrete  act.  Thus 
when  at  a  given  moment  we  know  self  as  rejoicing,  we  do  not  know 
the  self  as  separate,  or  the  rejoicing  as  separate,  but  we  grasp  the 
self  and  the  rejoicing  at  once.  But  then  it  is  necessary  for  many 
purposes  to  distinguish  between  them,  and  we  do  so  by  analysis  ; 
indeed,  the  analysis  is  in  a  sense  done  for  us  naturally.  For  while 
self  is  rejoicing  to-day,  it  may  be  grieving  to-morrow.  To  express 
the  distinction  it  is  needful  to  have  a  moraenclature,  and  so  we 
distinguish  between  the  substance  and  the  quality.  Not  that  the 
substance  can  ever  exist  without  the  quality,  or  the  quality  with- 
out the  substance.  On  the  contrary,  the  one  implies  the  other. 
The  substance  must  always  have  at  least  the  qualities  by  which  all 
substance  is  characterized,  and  it  may  have  many  otliers.      The 

>  MetapTi.  Lect.  8.  _ 


BOOK  I.]      AXALYJSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.       151 

qualities  must  always  be  qualities  of  a  thing  having  these  charac- 
teristics. The  maxim  that  the  substance  implies  the  quality,  is 
thus  a  propositiou  of  the  same  character  as  that  the  substance 
implies  the  mode. 

The  word  "  substance"  may  be  used  either  as  an  abstract  or  a 
general  term.  As  an  abstract  term  it  designates  the  thing  as  having 
the  characteristics  of  substance,  which  I  believe  to  be  existence, 
potency,  and  continuance.  As  a  general  term  it  denotes  all  those 
things  which  have  the  characteristics  of  substance.  Quality,  too, 
may  be  employed  as  an  abstract  or  a  general  term.  As  an  abstract 
term  it  denotes  tJicd  in  any  given  substance  by  which  it  acts  or 
manifests  itself.  As  a  general  term  it  denotes  all  the  manifesta- 
tions or  actions  of  a  substance.  Some  of  these  qualities  are  found 
in  all  substance :  such  arc  the  characteristics  of  substance  of  which 
I  have  so  often  spoken.  Others  are  peculiar  to  certain  substances, 
or  manifest  themselves  in  certain  substances  at  certain  times. 
Particular  qualities  are  known  by  us  intuitively  to  be  in  mind  or 
matter.  Tlius  we  know  consciousness,  personality,  thought,  and 
will,  as  in  mind  ;  Vv-hile  we  know  extension  and  incompressibility 
as  being  in  matter ;  these  may  appropriately  be  styled  Essential 
Qualities  of  spirit  and  body.  Other  qualities  are  discovered  by  a 
gathered  experience.  Both  mind  and  body  may  have  qualities 
which  can  never  be  known  by  us.  As  to  the  qualities  which  become 
known  to  us  by  experience,  and  the  qualities  concealed  from  us,  we 
can  never  know  whether  any  of  them  are,  or  are  not,  essential  either 
to  body  or  mind. 

If  this  view  be  correct,  we  see  that  a  wrong  account  is  often  given 
of  substance  and  qualities,  and  the  relation  between  them.  Thus 
it  is  very  common  to  say  that  substance  is  a  thing  behind  the 
qualities  or  underneath  them,  acting  as  a  substratum,  basis,  ground, 
or  support.  All  such  language  is  in  its  very  nature  metaphorical ; 
the  analogy  is  of  the  most  distant  kind,  and  may  have  a  misleading 
character.  The  substance  is  tlie  very  tiling  itself,  considered  in  a 
certain  aspect,  and  the  qualities  are  its  action  or  manifestation. 
Again,  it  is  frequently  said  that  qualities  are  known,  whereas 
substance  cannot  be  known,  or  if  known,  known  only  by  some 
deeper  or  more  transcendental  principle  of  the  mind.     Now  I  hold 


152  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [paiit  ii. 

that  WQ  never  know  quality  except  as  the  quality  of  a  substance, 
and  that  we  know  both  equally  in  one  undivided  act.  This  is  a 
somewhat  less  mystical  or  mysterious  account  than  that  commonly 
given  by  metapliysicians,  but  is,  as  it  appears  to  me,  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  revelations  of  consciousness. 

I  have  said  that  the  term  "  quality"  expresses  all  in  the  sub- 
stance by  which  it  acts  or  manifests  itself.  That  in  substance  which 
acts,  is  power,  and  in  all  substance  (we  have  seen)  is  power.  The 
term  Property,  which  signifies  peculiar  quality,  might,  I  think,  in 
accordance  with  a  usage  to  which  it  has  of  late  been  approximating 
more  and  more,  be  appropriated  to  express  the  powers  of  any  given 
substance,  as  the  power  of  thinking  or  feeling  in  mind,  or  of  gravity 
or  chemical  affinity  in  body.  To  vary  the  phraseology,  the  word 
Faculty  may  be  employed  when  we  speak  of  mental  powers,  and 
Force  when  we  speak  of  material  powers.  It  is  the  business  of 
science  to  determine  by  observation  and  generalization,  the  powers 
or  properties  of  mind  and  body. 

Another  phrase  with  the  ideas  involved  in  it  requires  to  be 
explained  here,  and  that  is  Essence.  It  is  a  very  mystical  word, 
and  a  whole  aggregate  of  foolish  speculation  has  clustered  round 
it.  Still  it  may  have  a  meaning.  As  applied  logically  to  classes 
of  objects,  it  has  a  signification  which  can  be  precisely  fixed ;  it 
denotes  the  common  quality  or  qualities  wliich  are  found  in  all  the 
members  of  the  class.  Thus  tlie  possession  of  four  limbs  is  the 
essence  of  the  class  quadruped.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  when 
the  class  is  one  of  what  some  logicians  call  Kinds,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  specify  all  the  common  qualities  which  go  to  constitute  it. 
Thus  we  cannot  tell  all  the  attributes  which  go  to  make  up  such 
natural  classes  as  those  of  metal,  dog,  or  rose.  All  that  we  can  do 
is  to  specify  some  of  the  more  marked,  wliich  are  signs  of  others. 
But  for  such  logical  purposes  the  phrase  "  common  attribute"  or 
•'  differentia"  is  the  better,  and  is  more  frequently  employed.  It 
is  in  metaphysics  that  the  word  "  essence"  is  supposed  to  have  a 
place.  Thus  the  question  is  often  put.  What  is  the  essence  of 
mind  ?  or,  What  is  the  essence  of  body  ?  or,  What  is  the  essence  of 
this  individual  mind,  or  of  this  piece  of  clay  or  chalk?  Now  we 
can  answer  such  a  question  as  this,  only  when  we  are  allowed  to 


BOOK  I.]     ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COONITIOXS        153 

draw  distinctions  and  offer  explanations.  First,  we  may  allowably 
conceive  that  every  one  object,  and  every  class  of  objects,  has  an 
aggregate  of  things  which  go  to  constitute  it,  and  we  may  with 
perfect  propriety  refer  to  such  an  essence  as  possibly  or  probably 
existing,^  but  always  on  the  distinct  condition  forthwith  to  be 
specified  more  formally,  that  we  do  not  speak  of  the  essence  as 
something  which  can  be  known  by  us  in  all  its  totality.  Secondly, 
there  are  some  things  which  we  know  to  belong  to  the  essence  of 
certain  objects  ;  tluis  we  know  that  being,  power,  and  permanence, 
are  essential  to  all  substance,  and  that  certain  qualities,  such  as 
consciousness  and  thought,  belong  to  mind,  and  certain  qualities, 
such  as  extension  and  incompressibility,  to  body.  But  we  must 
ever  guard  against  the  idea  that  there  may  not  be  other  qualities 
also  essential  to  these  objects.  For,  thirdly,  the  essence  of  a 
thing,  at  least  in  its  totality,  must  always  be  unknown  to  man. 
How  many  things  are  united  in  body  or  mind,  or  in  any  individual 
mind  or  material  object,  this  can  never  be  ascertained  by  human 
observation  or  ingenuity.  In  this  sense  it  is  proper  in  us  to  speak 
of  the  essence  of  things  as  being  unknown  to  man  ;  meaning 
thereby,  not  that  we  cannot  know  the  substance,  which  I  maintain 
we  do  know,  or  that  we  cannot  know  some  of  the  qualities  which 
go  to  make  up  the  essence,  but  merely  that  we  cannot  know  what 
precisely  constitutes  the  essence  in  its  entireness.  But,  fourthly , 
we  are  not  warranted  to  maintain  that  there  must  be  something 
lying  further  in  than  the  qualities  we  know,  and  that  this  one 
thing  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  the  essence  of  the  object.  We 
have  no  ground  whatever  for  believing  that  there  must  be,  or  that 
there  is,  something  more  internal  or  central  than  the  substance 
and  quality  which  we  know.  True,  there  are  probably  occult 
qualities,  even  in  those  objects  with  which  we  are  most  intimately 
acquainted,  but  we  are  not  therefore  warranted  to  conclude  that 
what  is  concealed  must  differ  in  nature  or  in  kind  from  what  is 
revealed,  or  that  it  is  in  any  way  more  necessary  to  the  existence 
or  the  continuance  of  the  object.      I  have  a  slirewd  suspicion  tliat 

1  Locke,  Letter  to  StiiUngfieet,  takes  Essences  "  to  be  in  everything  that  internal  constitu- 
tion, or  frame,  or  modification  of  the  Substance,  which  God,  in  his  wisdom  and  good  pleasure, 
thinks  fit  to  give  to  every  i)articular  creature  when  he  gives  it  a  being;  and  such  essences 
I  grant  there  are  in  all  things  that  exist." 


154  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

there  is  a  vast  amount  of  unmeaning  talk  in  the  language  whicli 
is  employed  on  tins  special  subject  by  metaphysicians,  who  would 
see  something  wliich  the  vulgar  cannot  discern,  whereas  they 
should  be  contented  with  unfolding  the  nature  of  what  all  men 
perceive.  It  is  quite  conceivable,  and  perfectly  i)Ossible,  that 
though  we  should  know  all  about  any  given  material  or  spiritual 
object,  we  should  after  all  not  fall  in  with  anything  more  mysterious 
or  deep  than  those  wonders  which  come  every  day  under  our  notice 
in  the  world  without,  or  the  world  within  us. 


SECT,   v.— ON  PERSONALITY. 

Our  perception  of  personality  is  closely  connected  with  our 
knowledge  of  being,  but  there  is  more  in  personality  than  in  being. 
We  know  material  objects  as  having  existence,  but  we  have  a 
special  apprehension  in  regard  to  self  beyond  what  we  have  in 
regard  to  material  objects.'  Like  every  other  simple  perception,  it 
cannot  be  defined,  but  it  may  be  brought  out  to  separate  view  by 
abstraction  ;  and  consciousness  (with  memory)  will  recognize  it  as 
one  of  the  cognitions  which  it  had  seen  before  in  company  with 
others.  We  express  this  conviction  when  we  say  we  are  persons. 
The  abstract  idea  is  one  not  likely  to  be  spontaneously  formed. 
The  infant,  the  child,  the  savage,  are  not  in  the  habit  of  making 
any  such  analysis  of  consciousness,  nor  are  the  great  body  of  man- 
kind at  the  trouble  of  asserting  their  own  existence.  Such  a 
proposition,  with  its  subject  and  predicate,  will  be  formed  only 
after  philosophy  has  taken  a  shape, — probably  only  after  sophistry 
and  scepticism  have  been  attacking  our  original  convictions.  It 
is    only   the   metaphysician   who   will   ever    take    the    trouble   of 

»  "This  self-personality, like  all  other  simple  and  immediate  presentations,  is  indefinable; 
but  it  is  80,  because  it  is  superior  to  definition.  It  can  be  analysed  into  no  simpler  ele- 
ments, for  it  is  itself  the  simplest  of  all ;  it  can  be  made  no  clearer  by  description  or 
comparison,  for  it  is  revealed  to  us  in  all  the  clearness  of  an  original  intuition,  of  which 
description  and  comparison  can  furnish  only  faint  and  partial  resemblances"  (Mangel, 
r I'olefjomena  Logica,  p.  129  ;  see  also  Metaphysics).  It  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  oversights 
of  Kant  that  he  did  not  give  personality  a  place  among  the  intuitions  of  the  mind,  to  which 
it  is  entitled  quite  as  much  as  space  and  time.  Held  in  by  no  primary  belief  in  personaHty, 
those  who  came  after,  such  as  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  wandered  out  into  a  wide  waste 
of  Pantheism.  Taking  with  them  no  belief  in  the  personality  of  self,  they  never  could 
reach  personality  in  God. 


BOOK  L]  ANALYSIS  OF  PBUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.      155 

affirming  tliat  he   exists,  and  the  wise   metaphysician  will  refrain 
from  going  further  and  trying  to  prove  that  he  exists. 

Yet  it  is  a  conviction  which  the  mind  ever  carries  with  it ;  it  is 
one  of  the  high  characteristics  of  humanity.  Inanimate  matter  is 
without  it.  The  brute  shows  that  he  is  tending  towards  it,  yet  can 
have  it  only  in  an  incipient  degree.  It  is  an  essential  characteristic 
of  the  man's  individuality,  and  is  one  of  the  main  elements  in  his 
sense  of  independence,  in  his  sense  of  freedom,  in  his  sense  of 
responsibility.  As  possessing  it,  man  feels  that  he  is  independent 
of  physical  nature ;  independent  of  all  creature  intelligences ;  inde- 
pendent, in  a  sense,  of  God,  against  whom,  alas !  he  may  rebel, 
and  to  whom  he  must  for  certain  give  an  account.  It  is  a  convic- 
tion to  be  used  and  not  abused.  It  would  certainly  be  perverted 
were  it  to  seduce  man  to  isolate  himself  from  the  objects  around 
him,  to  try  to  become  independent  of  the  provisions  made  to  aid 
his  weakness  in  pliysical  nature,  or  to  separate  himself  from  his 
brothers  or  sisters  of  humanity ;  and  still  more  were  it  to  tempt 
him  to  rebel  against  God.  It  is  properly  used  when,  under  the 
guidance  of  moral  law,  it  is  leading  him,  not  to  be  ever  floating  on 
with  tlie  stream,  but  at  times  to  be  standing  up  in  the  midst  of  it 
and  acting  as  a  breakwater  in  its  current,  or  as  a  martyr  seeking 
to  stem  the  tide  of  corruption,  or  Prometheus-like,  rising  up,  not 
against  the  true  God,  but  against  the  false  gods  who  rule  in 
Olympus.  Powers  hostile  to  the  progress  of  humanity  have  sought 
to  subdue  this  principle.  Absolutism  would  crush  it,  and  make 
man  live  for  some  slavish  end,  political  or  ecclesiastical.  Pantheism 
would  dissipate  it  till  man  loses  all  individuality,  and  becomes 
relaxed,  as  he  moves  listlessly  in  a  hot  and  hazy  atmosphere.  It 
is  this  conviction  which  makes  man  feel  tliat  he  is  not  a  mere 
bubble  on  the  surface  of  being,  blown  up  in  one  chance  agitation, 
and  about  to  be  absorbed  in  another.  It  keeps  man  from  being 
lost, — lost  in  physical  nature,  lost  in  the  crowd  of  human  beings, 
or  lost  in  the  ocean  of  being  ;  he  is,  after  all,  and  amidst  all,  a  person. 
As  such  he  has  a  part  to  perform,  an  end  to  serve,  a  work  to  do,  a 
destiny  to  work  out,  and  an  account  to  render. 


150  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

SECT.   VI.— ON  EXTENSION. 

The  knowledge  of  extension  is  involved  in  every  exercise  of 
sense-perception,  even  as  the  knowledge  of  personality  is  implied 
in  every  exercise  of  self-consciousness.  Wc  certainly  cannot  employ 
tlie  senses  of  siglit  and  muscular  energy, — we  cannot,  I  believe, 
l)crceivc  through  any  of  the  senses, — without  knowing  the  object, 
be  it  the  organism  or  something  affecting  the  organism,  as  possessing 
extension— always  along  with  other  qualities.  This,  tlien,  is  his- 
torically the  origin  of  our  idea  of  extension  or  space, — that  is, 
we  have  a  perception  of  it  in  every  cognition  of  body.  But  in  this 
primitive  knowledge  we  do  not  apprehend  it  as  distinct  from 
body.  It  is  an  extended  and  a  coloured  surface,  which  we  know 
through  the  eye;  it  is  an  extended  body  capable  of  resisting 
us,  which  we  know  through  the  muscular  sense  and  locomotive 
energy  ;  it  is  a  set  of  organs  localized  and  out  of  each  other,  that  we 
know  by  the  other  senses.'  But  by  an  easy  intellectual  act  we  can 
separate  the  extension  from  the  impenetrability  and  the  associated 
sensations.  We  are  greatly  aided  in  our  apprehensions  of  empty 
space  by  certain  exercises  of  sense-perception.  For  we  have  ex- 
perience ever  presenting  itself  of  two  bodies  seen  or  felt,  with 
nothing  between  obvious  to  the  senses.  True,  scientific  research 
shows  that  the  interval  is  not  a  pure  vacuum,  that  there  is  air,  or 
ether,  between  the  bodies ;  still  it  is  in  our  apprehension  a  void, — 
that  is,  a  space,  with  no  perceived  body  to  fill  it.     We  are  thus  led 

I  Prof.  Bain  maintains  {The  Senses  and  Intellect,  2d  ed.  p.  S97),  that  the  localization 
of  our  bodily  feelings  is  the  result  of  experience.  I  admit  that  it  is  by  the  muscular  sense 
and  the  eye  that  we  know  the  external  configuration  of  our  frame,  and  that  it  is  by  a 
gathered  experience  we  connect  this  with  the  internal  feelings.  But  I  hold  that  we  give 
an  externality  and  a  direction  to  our  bodily  sensations.  Mr.  Bain  acknowledges  that  the 
body  is  to  us  an  external  object  (p.  397).  If  so,  it  must  be  known  in  space.  But  it 
has  never  yet  been  shown  how  we  can  know  an  object  as  external  to  us  and  in  space  ex- 
cept intuitively.  "  I  do  not  see,"  says  Mr.  Bain,  in  criticising  Hamilton  (p.  376),  "  how- 
one  sensation  can  be  felt  out  of  another  without  already  supposing  that  we  have  a  feeling 
of  space."  What  we  suppose  is  that  in  thus  regarding  the  body  as  external  and  localizing 
the  sensations  we  get  the  idea  of  space.  It  is  a  law  of  this  localizing  that  the  sensation 
is  felt  at  the  part  of  the  body  to  which  the  nerve  reaches.  And  "  when  diflferent  parts  of 
the  thickness  of  the  same  nerves  are  severally  subjected  to  irritation,  the  same  sensations 
are  produced  as  if  the  different  terminal  branches  of  these  parts  of  the  nerves  had  been 
irritated.  If  the  ulnar  nerve  be  irritated  mechanically,  particularly  by  pressing  it  from 
Bide  to  side  with  the  finger,  the  sensation  of  pins  and  needles  is  produced  in  the  palm  and 
back  of  the  hand,  and  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  finger.  But  according  as  the  pressure  is 
varied  the  pricking  sensation  is  felt  by  turns  in  the  fourth  finger,  in  the  fifth,  in  the  palm 


BOOK  I.]     AA^ALYSLS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.        157 

to  an  apprehension  of  space  as  different  from  body  occupying  space. 
We  are  not  to  look  on  the  extension  thus  reached  as  an  illusion,  a 
nonentity,  or  as  nothing.  If  we  know,  as  I  maintain  we  do,  body 
in  space,  the  space  must  have  an  existence  (I  do  not  say  what  sort 
of  existence),  just  as  much  as  the  body  has.  When  we  separately 
contemplate  the  extension,  we  are  contemplating  a  reality  just  as 
verily  as  when  we  perceive  the  body.  It  will  not  do  to  dismiss 
space  summarily  by  describing  it  as  a  mere  abstraction  ;  in  order 
to  our  apprehension  of  it  there  is  need  of  abstraction,  but  it  is  an 
abstraction  of  a  real  part  from  a  real  whole. 

To  this  cognition  of  space,  and  to  every  apprehension  of  it,  there 
is  attached  a  number  of  intuitive  beliefs.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
metaphysician  to  unfold  these  in  an  inductive  manner,  and  point  out 
and  determine  their  nature  and  laws  as  precisely  as  possible.  This 
falls  to  be  done  in  another  Book  of  this  Treatise,  to  which  there- 
fore I  adjourn  the  further  discussion  of  space,  as  it  embraces  a  larger 
faith  than  it  does  of  a  cognitive  element  in  our  apprehension  of  it. 

SECT.  VII.— ON  NUMBER. 

We  seem  to  derive  our  knowledge  of  number  from  our  cognition 
of  being,  and  especially  from  our  cognition  of  self  as  a  person.  We 
know  self  as  one  object ;  we  also  know  other  and  external  objects 
as  singulars.  Already  then  have  we  number  in  the  concrete,  in- 
volved in  this  our  primary  knoAvledge.'     Every  object  known,  and 

of  the  hand,  on  the  back  of  the  hand,  and  both  in  the  palm  and  on  the  back  of  the  hand 
the  situaUon  of  the  pricking  sensation  is  different  according  as  the  pressure  on  the  nerves 
is  varied,  that  is  to  say,  according  as  different  fibres  or  fasciculi  of  fibres  are  more  pressed 
upon  than  others"  (Muller's  Physiology,  pp.  7-io-747).  Surely  all  this  is  instinctive,  not 
acquired.  So  deep  is  the  disposition  to  localize  that  it  cannot  be  eradicated.  "When  a 
limb  has  been  removed  by  amputation,  the  remaining  portion  of  the  nerve  which  ramified 
in  it  may  still  be  the  seat  of  sensations  which  are  referred  to  the  lost  part."  "These 
sensations  are  not  of  an  undefined  character,  the  pains  and  tingling  are  distinctly  referred 
to  single  toes,  to  the  solo  of  the  feet,  to  the  dorsum,"  etc.  A  case  is  quoted  of  a  person 
whose  arm  had  been  amputated,  and  who  declared  twenty  years  after  that  "the  sense  of  the 
integrity  of  the  limb  is  never  lost."  There  is  appended  a  note  by  Baly  :  "  Professor  Valentin 
has  observed,  that  individuals  who  are  the  subjects  of  congenital  imperfection  or  absence  of 
the  extremities  have  nevertheless  the  internal  sensations  of  such  limbs  in  their  perfect  state. 
A  girl  aged  nineteen  years,  in  whom  the  metacarpal  bones  of  the  left  hand  were  very 
short,  and  all  the  bones  of  the  phalanges  absent,  a  row  of  imperfectly  organized  wart- 
like projections  representing  the  fingers,  assured  M.  Valentin  that  she  had  constantly  the 
internal  sensation  of  the  palm  of  the  hand  on  the  left  side  as  perfect  as  in  the  right." 
J  Aristotle  places  number  among  the  sensiblcs   perceived   by  the  common  sense  {De 


158  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

especially  self,  is  known  as  one.  Every  other  object  known,  is 
known  as  another  one.  If  wc  know  self  as  owe,  then  tlie  external 
object  which  is  known  as  different  from  self,  is  known  as  a  second 
one.  The  mind  can  now  think  of  one  object,  and  of  one  object  + 
another  object,  or  of  two,  and  of  one  object  +  another  object  + 
another  object,  or  of  three.  It  can  then,  by  a  process  of  abstraction, 
separate  the  numbers  from  the  objects,  in  order  to  tlieir  separate 
consideration.  Not  that  it  supposes  for  one  instant  that  numbers 
can  exist  apart  from  objects,  but  it  can  separately  contemplate 
them.  One  cannot  exist  apart  from  one  object,  or  two  from  two 
objects,  but  the  mind  can  think  about  the  one  or  the  two  apart 
from  the  peculiarity  of  the  objects.  Its  judgments  and  its  con- 
clusions in  all  such  cases,  if  conducted  according  to  the  laws  of 
tliought,  will  apply  to  objects  ;  tliat  is,  all  its  judgments  regarding 
one,  two,  or  a  thousand,  will  apply  to  a  corresponding  number  of 
objects.  Having  obtained  in  this  way  a  knowledge  of  numbers  in 
the  concrete,  and  numbers  in  the  abstract,  the  mind  is  prepared  to 
discover  relations  among  numbers  in  a  manner  to  be  afterwards 
specified  in  the  book  on  Primitive  Judgments. 

But  before  leaving  our  present  topic,  it  may  be  proper  to  state 
that  the  mind  has  no  such  conviction  of  the  existence  of  numbers 
separate  from  the  objects  numbered,  as  it  has  of  space,  distinct 
from  the  objects  in  space,  or  as  it  has  of  time,  distinct  from  the 
events  which  happen  in  time  ;  nor  has  it  any  intuitive  belief  as  to 
the  necessary  infinity  of  objects  or  of  numbers.  True,  it  can  set 
no  limit  to  the  number  of  objects,  but  it  is  not  compelled  to  believe 
that  there  can  be  no  limits,  as  it  is  constrained  to  believe  that 
there  can  be  no  bounds  to  space  or  to  time. 

SECT.  Vlir.— ON  MOTION. 

Our  perception  of  motion  is,  as  it  appears  to  me,  intuitive.  But 
it  supposes  more  than  sense,  or  sense-perception,  in   the  narrow 

Anima  ii.  6  ;  iii.  1).  He  says  each  sense  perceives  unity :  iKaarrj  yup  Iv  aladuveTai  alaOrjciq 
(iii.  1,  5,  ed  Trend.)  Descartes  makes  number  perceived  by  us  in  all  perceptions  of  body 
{rrin.  Part  i.  69).  Locke  says  of  Unity  or  One :  "  Every  object  our  senses  are  employed 
about,  every  idea  in  our  understandings,  every  thought  of  our  minds,  brings  this  idea 
ftlonc  with  it"  {Essay,  ii.  xvi.  1).  Buffier  says  that  the  knowledge  ih&il  exist,  lam,  I  think, 
is  in  a  sense  the  same  as,  or  at  least  includes  this,  I  am  one  {Prem.  Ver.  Part  ii.  10). 


BOOK  I.]    ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.         159 

sense  of  the  term.  It  is  probable  that  we  have  an  apprehension  of 
change  of  place,  from  the  movement  of  our  intuitively  localized 
organs,— say  from  a  member  of  the  body  being  moved  by  the  loco- 
motive energy,  as  when  I  lift  my  arm  ;  tliis  perception  will  be 
especially  apt  to  arise  when  we  move  the  hand  along  organs  to 
which  a  place  has  been  given.  Or  we  may  apprehend  an  extra 
organic  body  by  the  touch  or  muscular  sense,  and  by  the  same 
sense  feel  our  hand  or  some  other  extra  organic  body  passing  over 
it.  We  may  also  get  the  perception  by  the  sense  of  sight.  The 
child  touching  a  part  of  the  body  by  its  hand,  will  see  the  imago 
of  its  hand  moving  to  perform  the  act.  Besides,  the  "image  of 
our  own  body  occupies,  in  nearly  all  pictures  on  our  retina,  regu- 
larly some  determinate  space  in  the  upper,  middle,  or  lower  part 
of  the  field  of  vision ; "  it  remains  constant  while  tlie  other  images 
arc  seen  moving.*  There  is  more  here  however  than  immediate 
cognition.  There  is  a  brief  exercise  of  memory  ;  we  must,  at  the 
same  time  that  we  perceive  the  body  as  now  in  one  place,  remem- 
ber that  it  was  formerly  in  another  place.  There  is  an  exercise  too 
of  comparison  in  noticing  the  relation  between  the  object  in  re- 
spect of  the  place  in  which  it  has  been,  and  the  place  in  which  it 
now  is.  And  upon  our  discovering  change  of  any  kind  in  the 
motion,  the  intuition  of  cause  comes  in  to  declare  that  there  must 
have  been  active  power  at  work.  This  is  one  of  those  cases  which 
will  come  before  us  more  and  more  frequently  as  we  advance,  in 
which  cognitions,  beliefs,  and  judgments  mingle  together ;  and  yet 
the  act  can  scarcely  be  described  as  complex,  except  in  this  sense, 
that  on  other  occasions  some  of  the  parts  can  exist  separately  or  in 
other  combinations.  The  circumstance  that  these  other  elements 
conjoin  in  our  conviction  as  to  motion,  will  bring  the  subject 
l)cfore  us  in  other  parts  of  the  Treatise. 

>  (Mailer's  Pliysiologij,  trans,  by  Baly,  p.  1083.)  Aristotle  places  motion,  like  number, 
aniony  tlie  common  sensiblcs,  Descartes  among  the  properties  perceived  in  every  percep- 
tion of  body  (see  places  in  last  note),  and  Locke  among  the  primary  qualities  of  bodies, 
which  arc  always  in  them  (ii.  viii.  22).  The  young  man  operated  upon  by  Dr.  Franz  for 
cataract,  three  days  after  the  operation,  saw  "an  extensive  field  of  light,  in  which  every 
thing  appeared  dull,  confused,  and  in  motion."  In  a  case  reported  by  Dr.  Wardrop,  the 
woman  returning  home  after  the  operation,  saw  a  hackney  coach  pass,  and  asked,  "What 
is  that  large  thing  that  passed  us  ?"   (See  Abbot,  Sight  and  Touch,  p.  153.) 


160  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

SECT.  IX.- ON  POWER. 

I  have  been  labouring  to  show,  in  the  last  chapter  and  in  this 
tliat  power  is  involvod  in  our  knowledge  of  substance.  We  can 
never  know  either  self,  or  bodies  beyond  self,  except  as  exercising 
influence  or  potency.  Not  that  we  arc  to  suppose  that  we  have 
thus  by  intuition  an  abstract  or  a  general  idea  of  power  ;  all  that 
we  have  is  a  knowledge  of  a  given  substance  acting.  This  seems 
the  only  doctrine  in  accordance  with  the  revelations  of  conscious- 
ness. It  is  involved  in  the  common  statement  that  we  cannot 
know  substance  except  by  its  properties  ;  for  what  are  properties 
but  powers  acting  when  the  needful  conditions  are  supplied  ?  I 
reckon  it  as  an  oversight  in  a  great  body  of  metaphysrcians  that 
tliey  have  been  afraid  to  ascribe  our  apprehension  of  power  to 
intuition.  In  consequence  of  this  neglect,  some  never  get  the  idea 
.of  power,  but  merely  of  succession,  within  the  bare  limits  of  expe- 
rience, which  can  never  entitle  us  to  argue  that  the  world  must 
have  proceeded  from  Divine  Power ;  others  have  been  obliged  to 
fnid  cause,  not  in  any  perception  of  the  mind  as  it  looks  on  things, 
but  in  some  form  imposed  by  the  mind  on  subjects  ;  wliile  a  con- 
siderable number  hesitate  and  vacillate  in  their  account,  repre- 
senting it  now  as  an  original  conviction,  and  now  as  an  acquisition 
of  experience. 

Wherever  there  is  power  in  act,  there  is  an  effect.  But  the 
discovery  of  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect  cannot  be 
discovered,  except  by  an  exercise  of  judgment.  The  discussion  of 
the  nature  of  our  conviction  of  Power  will  be  resumed  under  the 
head  of  Primitive  Judgments. 


SECT.   X.—{SUPPLEMENTARy.)-ll{^  VARIOUS   KINDS    OF    POWER  KNOWN 

BY  EXPERIENCE. 

We  are  led  by  the  cognitive  nature  of  the  mind  to  look  on  the  substance  as 
necessarily  possessing  potency,  but  it  is  after  all  by  experience  that  we  have  to 
determine  the  nature  of  the  power  exercised  by  any  particular  substance.  Ex- 
perience shows  us  that  all  potency  is  not  of  the  same  description.  The  precise 
nature  of  the  power  residing  in  any  one  substance  is  to  be  ascertained  by  a 
generalization  of  its  individual  operations.     Though  it  does  not  fall  within  our 


BOOK  I.]     ANALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGXITIONS.        IGl 

precise  province,  yet  it  may  laelp  to  clear  up  some  important  metaphysical 
questions,  if  we  particularize  some  of  the  kinds  of  potency  made  known  by 
experience. 

I.  Force  i?r  iN.vifiMATE  Objects, — In  order  to  the  exercise  of  this  potency 
there  is  need  of  two  or  more  bodies  in  a  pai-ticular  relation  to  each  other.  A 
simple  body  existing  alone  in  the  universe,  and  in  a  state  of  isolation,  that  is,  in 
no  relation  to  any  other  body,  could  exercise  no  active  power  whatever.  Indeed, 
the  power  of  a  body  seems  to  be  a  power  to  influence  some  other  body  or  some 
other  substance.  It  seems  also  to  be  a  law  of  the  action  of  bodies  that  when 
any  one  body  acts  on  another,  that  other  acts  on  it.  In  all  material  causation 
there  is  thus  mutual  action  ;  and  experience  seems  to  show  that  the  action  of 
each  of  the  bodies  is  equal  to  that  of  the  other.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  physical 
sciences  to  determine  the  natm-e  and  measure  of  this  reciprocal  operation. 

According  to  this  account  there  is  need,  in  order  to  material  action,  of  two  or 
more  bodies.  Whsn  these  bodies  are  in  such  a  relation  as  suits  their  several 
propeities,  action  takes  place,  and  an  effect  is  produced.  It  follows  that  cause — 
meaning  by  cause  the  invariable  and  unconditional  cause,  that  which  of  itself 
will  produce  the  efl'ect,  and  ever  produce  the  eflect— must  always  be  more  or 
less  complex  ;  it  always  implies  two  or  more  bodies  in  a  particular  relation  to 
each  other.  Tlie  efiect  will  always  be  foimd  to  be  of  the  same  complex  char- 
acter, will  always  be  found  to  consist  of  tlie  bodies  which  acted  as  a  cause,  beiag 
in  some  way  changed.  To  illustrate  v/hat  I  mean :— Let  us  suppose  that  we 
have  two  material  substances  to  experiment  with,  salt  and  water.  Place  the 
two  out  of  relation  to  each  other,  and  no  effect  will  be  produced.  Biing  them 
into  contact,  and  action  will  commence.  The  salt  acts  on  the  water,  and  the 
water  on  the  salt.  The  cause,  properly  speaking,  of  this  action  is  not  the  salt 
alone,  or  the  water  alone,  but  the  salt  and  vrater  in  a  particular  relation.  This 
is  the  true  cause,  productive  and  necessaiy  ;  the  cause  which,  wherever  it  exists, 
will  tend  to  produce  the  same  effect,  and  in  fact  produce  it,  except  when  counter- 
acted by  other  forces.  The  effect  is  also  dual,  and  it  is  to  be  foimd  in  the  very- 
substances  which  acted  as  the  cause  ;  it  is  not  to  be  foimd  in  the  salt,  or  in  the 
water,  or  in  a  third  substance,  but  in  the  salt  and  water  in  a  new  and  different 
state.  Tliis  is  the  invariable  effect  which  will  be  for  ever  produced  by  the  same 
cause. 

Such  poems  to  be  the  nature  of  material  causation  and  effectuation.  In  all 
cases  the  cause  is  dual,  or  plural,  as  is  also  the  effect ;  and  the  bodies  which 
acted  as  the  cause  are  the  bodies  acted  on  in  the  effect.  I  am  persuaded  that 
the  well-known  law  of  action  and  reaction  proceeds  on  this  circumstance,  which 
is  also  intimately  connected  with  the  polar  action  of  substances.  In  the  common 
statements  as  to  cause  and  effect  there  is  only  one  of  the  elements  of  the  complex 
cause  or  complex  effect  mentioned,  the  other  being  omitted  because  it  does  not 
seem  needful  to  express  it.  Thus  we  speak  of  the  salt  as  the  cause,  making  the 
water  of  a  particular  taste  as  the  effect.  But  there  is  an  omission  in  all  such 
statement^;,  which  requires  to  be  completed  by  calling  in  the  missing  part,  when 
we  pnfess  to  give  a  thoroughly  accurate  and  philosophic  account  of  the  process. 
There  are  cases  in  which  the  complexity  of  the  cause  or  of  the  effect  is  not  so 
evident  as  in  the  example  I  have  given.  Thus,  if  a  picture  were  to  fall  upon  a 
table  and  break  it,  we  would  say  in  loose  language  that  the  fall  of  the  picture 
11 


162  PRUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ii. 

was  the  cause  of  the  lirealdng  of  the  tahle.  But  when  the  full  cause  is  spread 
out,  it  is  seen  to  be  the  picture  fiilling  with  a  particular  force,  and  striking  the 
table  in  a  particular  direction,  while  the  effect  consists  not  in  the  breaking  of  the 
table  merely,  Init  also  in  the  picture  losing  a  portion  of  its  momentum.  We 
have  but  to  reflect  for  a  very  little  to  see  and  be  prepared  to  acknowledge  that 
in  all  gravitating  action,  in  all  chemical,  in  all  magnetic  and  electric,  there  is  the 
co-operation  of  two  or  more  bodies,  and  that  the  cause  consists  of  the  bodies  in 
one  state  and  the  effects  of  the  same  bodies  in  a  different  state.' 

II.  Vital  Power. — The  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  determine  wherein 
life  consists  cannot  be  said  to  have  as  yet  been  crowned  with  auything  like  suc- 
cess. There  is  every  reason  to  tliiuk  that  there  is  a  vital  poAver  so  far  different 
from  the  mechanical  or  chemical,  but  science  has  not  yet  ascertained  its  nature 
and  its  laws.  So  far  as  we  have  glimpses  of  ita  mode  of  operation,  it  seems  to 
involve  a  complexity  of  agents.  One  part  of  the  ceU  acts  on  another,  or  one 
cell  acts  on  another,  or  it  acts  on  external  matter,  and  whatever  acts  is  being 
acted  on, 

A  curious  question  is  here  started,  What  is  the  nature  of  the  power  involved 
in  vegetable  and  animal  rejDroduction  ?  This  is  a  subject  still  involved  in  great 
mystery,  but  there  are  obvious  and  well-ascertained  facts  which  go  to  establish 
a  general  doctrine. 

First.,  There  is  a  duality  in  all  vital  reproduction.  In  certain  portions  of  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  the  reproductive  powers  are  in  different  organs,  in  others 
they  are  on  different  plants.  In  the  animal  creation  the  reproductive  organs  are 
commonly  in  different  individuals,  which  must  therefore  pair  in  order  to  the 
production  of  young.  This  is  an  example  in  a  higher  scale,  and  in  a  more 
patent  form,  of  that  duality  ia  causation  which  we  traced  already  in  inanimate 
creation,  and  which  makes  all  physical  creation  so  dependent  on  an-angements 
which  have  been  made  by  the  Creator  of  all  things. 

Secondly^  There  is  a  positive  and  adequate  power  in  the  dual  parentage  to 
produce  the  offspring  as  an  effect.  No  living  creature  can  proceed  except  from 
a  parent  of  its  own  kind  ;  no  vegetable  or  animal  can  spring  from  a  vegetable  or 
animal  inferior  to  itself  in  the  order  of  beings.  This  is  one  of  the  best  estab- 
lished generalizations  of  natural  histoiy ;  and  it  has  not  been  shaken  by  any  of 
the  attemj^ts  which  have  been  made  to  find  exceptions  to  it,  certainly  not  by 
the  analogies  which  have  been  urged  against  it,  derived  from  objects  totally 
different.  The  whole  of  the  true  analogies  of  Nature,  that  is,  those  derived 
from  objects  really  cijrrelated,  show  that  every  substance  or  aggregate  of  sub- 
stances producing  an  effect,  as  it  must  have  pov/er  to  produce  the  effect,  so  it 
must  have  power  to  produce  an  effect  of  that  particular  kind.  The  parents 
seem  to  be  endowed  with  a  power  to  produce  an  offspring  "  after  their  kind," 
that  is,  of  the  same  species  and  no  other.  There  is  no  power  on  the  part  of  an 
inferior  plant  to  i^roduce  a  higher,  on  the  part  of  a  vegetable  to  produce  an 
animal,  or  on  the  part  of  an  inferior  animal  to  produce  a  higher.  In  jjarticular, 
human  beings  with  intelligences,  and  such  only, — certainly  not  apes  or  monkeys, 
— can  have  an  offspring  possessed  of  reasonable  and  responsible  souls. 

This  doctrine  brings  reproduction  under  laws  analogous  to  those  laws  of  causa- 
tion which  reign  in  other  departments  of  Nature.  The  particular  mode  of  the 
1  This  subject  is  illustrated,  ilethod  of  Divine  Go)-ernment,  Book  ii.  Chap.  i. 


i 


BOOK  I.]  AXALYSIS  OF  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.         163 

operation  of  fhe  power  lias  not  been  and  may  never  be  fully  determined  but 
that  there  is  power  required,  special  in  kind  and  adequate  in  amount,  seems  to 
be  established  on  amply  sufficient  evidence.  This  doctrine  opens  to  us  a  glimpse 
of  the  deej)  foundation  vrhich  the  law  that  the  ofl'spriug  must  be  of  the  same 
species  as  the  parent,  has  in  the  veiy  constitution  of  things,  and  in  the  nature 
of  the  power  that  operates  in  the  universe. 

III.  Reciprocal  Action  of  jItsd  and  Body.— That  the  two  have  been  so 
constituted  as  that  the  bodily  organism  acts  on  mind,  while  mind  is  also  capable 
of  operating  on  the  organism,  this  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  satisfactoiy  as  it 
is  certainly  the  simplest  account  which  can  be  given  of  the  connexion.  But  let 
us  properly  understand  what,  on  such  a  supposition,  is  the  precise  cause.  It  is 
a  complex  one  in  every  case  ;  it  is  the  mind  and  the  body  in  a  particular  rela- 
tion to  each  other.  The  co-existence  of  the  two  is  necessary  to  any  eifect  being 
produced,  and  the  effect  is  the  result  of  the  two  operating  and  co-operating. 
Thus  in  all  perception  thi'ough  the  senses  there  is  a  cerebral  power  and  there  is 
mental  power,  and  without  both  there  will  be  no  result,  no  object  perceived. 
There  seems  also  to  be  a  duality  in  the  effect :  there  is  certainly  a  mental  effect, 
for  the  mind  now  perceives  ;  and  the  cerebral  mass,  in  the  very  act  of  producing 
,  mental  action,  may  undergo  a  change ;  thus  there  seems  to  be  a  fatigue  and  ex- 
haustion produced  in  the  organism  by  the  very  act  of  perceiving  an  immense 
number  of  objects  -nathin  a  brief  time,  as  when  we  travel  a  great  distance  by 
railway,  and  this  can  be  accoimted  for  by  supposing  that  the  organism  is  affected 
by  the  action  which  has  taken  place. 

There  is  a  similar  duality  of  power  in  all  those  cases  in  which  the  action 
begins  fi'om  the  mind,  as  when  we  will  to  move  the  arm,  and  the  arm  moves. 
Here  the  concurrence  of  two  factors  is  necessary  in  order  to  the  result  j  there  is 
a  volition,  and  a  nicely  adjusted  organism  in  a  healthy  state  ;  and  if  either  were 
wanting  the  effect  would  not  follow.  Possibly,  as  there  is  a  duality  in  the  cause, 
there  may  also  be  a  duality  in  the  effect,  and  the  next  mental  state  may  be  so 
far  modified  by  the  joint  bodily  and  mental  exertion  ;  but  I  have  to  add,  that 
it  is  just  as  possible  that  we  may  have  here  come  into  the  region  of  pure  mental 
causation,  in  which,  as  we  shall  see  forthwith,  there  is  no  such  comj)lexity. 

In  a  vast  amount  of  the  results  of  which  we  are  conscious,  the  concurrence  and 
co-operation  both  of  mental  and  cerebral  potency  are  required  in  order  to  action. 
Thus  it  has  been  proven  that  a  healthy  state  of  the  braia  is  requisite  in  order  to 
our  remembering  or  even  imagining  sensible  objects ;  for  in  certain  derangements 
of  the  brain  the  person  cannot  image  an  oljject  with  a  figure.  In  aU  such  cases 
the  main  cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  mind ;  still  the  body  has  a  part  to  play,  and 
if  it  does  not  co-operate,  the  effect  is  not  produced.  In  all  those  actions  in 
which  there  is  the  active  operation  of  the  bodily  organism,  in  order  to  a  mental 
effect,  it  seems  probable  that  the  mental  act,  or  rather  the  joint  act,  produces 
also  an  effect  on  the  bodily  organism  which  has  been  in  action.  In  all  mental 
emotion  there  seems  to  be  involved  the  active  co-operatiorf  of  a  bodily  organ- 
ism, and  there  is  always  a  reaction  on  the  organism,  often  in  wearying  and  de- 
ranging it,  at  least  when  the  feeling,  say  fear  or  sorrow,  is  excited  by  the  con- 
templation of  evil.  Even  in  the  exercises  of  the  intellect  there  seems  to  be  a 
concuiTence  of  organic  agency  necessary,  and  there  is  always  a  lassitude  following 
long  and  continuous  intellectual  efforts.    I  have  sometimes  thought  that  a  certain 


164  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  ir. 

organic  state  '.s,  necessary  in  order  to  our  yery  volitions ;  and  lience  our  inca- 
pacity to  fonn  a  fixed  puipose  in  certain  states  of  the  body,  and  the  weariness 
•which  follows  a  long  stretch  of  attention,  even  when  this  has  hccTi  accompanied 
with  no  bodily  exertions, 

I  am  aware  that  the  account  now  given  of  the  reciprocal  action  of  mind  and 
body,  is  exi)osed  to  a  great  amount  of  questioning.  Thus,  it  will  be  asked,  How 
does  mind  act  on  body,  and  body  on  mind  ?  To  this  I  reply  by  a  counter-ques- 
tion, What  is  meant  by  "  How  ?"  If  nothing  more  be  meant  than  simply  the 
occurrence  of  the  facts,  then  I  answer  that  psychological  and  physiological  re- 
search has  discovered  some  of  the  facts,  and  may  possibly  detect  more,  and  may 
very  probably  never  be  aljle  to  discover  the  whole.  If  something  more  than  this 
be  intended,  then  I  ask.  What  is  intended  ?  If  it  be  expected  that  v/e  find  out 
some  mysterious  bond  between  mind  and  body,  I  answer  that  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  there  is  any  such  bond,  and  that  if  there  did  exist  such  a  bond, 
and  we  could  discover  it,  it  would  only  increase  instead  of  lessening  the  mystery. 
The  most  reasonable  and  the  most  simi^le  view  is  that  spirit  and  body  have 
been  so  constituted,  that  is,  have  had  such  a  nature  imparted  to  them,  that  they 
mutually  influence  each  other,  and  co-operate  to  produce  a  joint  result, 

IV.  jVIektal  Action. — Wc  are  not  to  suppose  that  purely  mental  is  in  every  ^ 
respect  the  same  as  material  action.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  every  given  body 
is  inert  and  passive,  it  is  active  only  so  far  as  it  is  acted  on.  In  this  respect 
there  is  a  wide  diflerence  betv,reen  material  and  mental  power.  Material  causa- 
tion implies  the  j^resence  of  two  or  more  bodies,  v/hereas  mental  causation  re- 
quires the  presence  of  only  one— the  self-acting  mind.  I  can  think,  feel,  will, 
without  requiring  any  external  object  (always  perhaps  excepting  the  organism, 
in  the  subordinate  sense  already  referred  to)  to  co-operate  with  me.  The  oldest 
definition  of  mind  handed  down  to  us,  embodies  a  great  truth  when  it  describes 
it  as  that  which  moves  itself.  It  can  set  a  train  of  thought  a-going,  and  modify 
an  existing  train  hj  a  power  within  itself.  This  is  one  of  the  prerogatives  of 
mind,  eminently  characterizing  it,  and  at  once  distinguishing  it  from  sluggish 
and  passive  matter. 

But  while  there  is  self-acting  power  within  the  mind  itself,  there  is  a  sort  of 
duality  or  plurality  even  in  mental  action.  ^Yliat  is  the  cause  of  any  given 
state,  say  of  the  grief  I  may  be  feeling  at  this  present  time  ?  I  have  just  heard 
of  the  death  of  a  particular  individual  known  to  me,  and  the  intelligence  appre- 
hended is,  no  doubt,  part  of  the  cause  ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole  of  it,  for  the 
same  news  may  have  been  comprehended  by  another  person  without  producing 
any  such  effect.  In  the  imconditional  cause  there  must  be  included  not  only  the 
immediate  intelhgence  as  api^rehended  by  me,  but  the  affection  which  I  acquired 
in  former  years  for  the  individual,  and  even  my  original  susceptibility  of  friend- 
ship and  of  giief ;  the  concun-ence  of  all  these  is  necessary  in  order  to  this  par- 
ticular state  under  which  I  am  now  laboming.  Even  here,  too,  we  may  discover 
a  kind  of  duality  in  the  effect,  for  the  result  of  my  cherishing  grief  at  this  time 
is  to  deepen  my  affection  for  my  friend,  and  even  to  increase  my  original  capa- 
city for  affection  and  son'ow. 

V.  Causation  in  the  Will. — We  have  seen  that  mental  action  differs  widely 
from  material.     And  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  every  mental  action  is  the  same 


LOOK  j.-jANALYSJS  OF  PRUIITIVE  COGNITIONS.       1G5 

in  kind  as  every  other.  Every  faculty  of  the  mind  indeed  has  its  ovrn  rule  and 
mode  of  operation,  which  it  is  the  office  of  psychological  science  to  ascertain. 
In  particular,  causation  in  the  will  may  differ  from  causation  in  other  mental 
action. 

I  am  prepared  indeed  to  maintain  that  our  volitions  are  not  absolutely  beyond 
the  law  of  causation.  If  I  rightly  interpret  my  intuition  on  the  subject  of 
causation,  it  leads  me  to  look  for  a  cause  of  our  very  volitions  as  well  as  of  oui 
intellectual  acts.  Besides,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  have  been  predictions  of 
voluntai-y  acts,  say  of  crimes,  as  accurate  of  physical  events,  such  as  births  or 
deaths.  On  such  grounds  as  these  I  am  inclined  to  say  that  causation  must 
have  some  sort  of  place  in  the  will  as  in  all  other  creature-action.  But  causation 
in  regard  to  the  will  may  be  of  a  totally  different  character  from  causation  in 
acts  of  intelligence  or  feeling. 

While  om*  intuition  seems  to  me  to  say  that  causation  has  a  place  even  in 
voluntary  acts,  it  does  not  say  what  is  the  nature  of  that  causation  ;  this  is  to 
be  determined  by  an  inductive  inciuiiy  into  the  operations  of  our  voluntary  acts. 
And  here  we  are  at  once  met  by  the  fact  that  man  has  free  will.  This  fact 
cannot  set  aside  the  other  fact  that  our  volitions  are  caused  ;  but  as  both  are 
facts,  the  one  must  be  so  stated  as  to  be  seen  not  to  be  inconsistent  with  the 
other.  And  when  we  contemplate  oui-  volitions  by  the  light  of  consciousness, 
we  discover  at  once  that  causation  doe3  not  operate  in  the  will  as  it  does  in  the 
material  universe,  or  even  in  our  intellectual  and  emotional  actions.  Here,  I 
believe,  lies  the  key  which  is  to  explain  the  enigma  of  the  consistency  of  man's 
free  will  and  the  Divine  Sovereignty.  We  may  not  be  able  to  find  the  key,  but 
we  can  tell  the  place  where  it  lies. 

VI.  DiVLXE  Causation. — I  skriuk  from  entering  minutely  into  the  considera- 
tion of  the  action  of  causation  mthin  the  Divine  Mind.  It  is  evidently  a  sub- 
ject which  stretches  far  beyond  human  discussion  or  comprehension.  But  it 
appears  very  evident  that  we  are  led  to  look  on  God  as  a  Substance,  having 
power  in  Himself  and  the  cause  of  effects  produced.  Indeed  it  is  from  the 
effects  in  the  universe,  and  proceeding  on  an  intuitive  principle,  that  we  argue 
that  there  is  a  cause  above  the  world.  The  nature  of  the  causation  is  in  every 
case  to  be  determined  by  an  inductive  investigation  of  facts,  and  not  by  a  priori 
speculation.  Such  an  inquiry  will  soon  convince  us  that  causation  in  the  acts 
of  God  is  not  of  the  same  kind  as  causation  in  the  operations  of  created 
objects.  In  particular  there  is  no  need,  as  in  physical  nature,  of  any  co-opera- 
tion in  order  to  the  Divine  Avorkmanshijj.  "  He  spake,  and  it  was  done  :  He 
commanded,  and  it  stood  fast."  "  He  said.  Let  there  be  light :  and  there  was 
light."  Not  only  so,  but  in  the  original  operation  of  God  in  the  universe,  there 
must  have  been  the  exercise  of  a  power,  to  which  we  see  nothing  similar  in  the 
actions  of  any  created  object.  Man  cannot  create  anything  absolutely  new ;  he 
cannot  create  a  new  power  or  property  :  he  can  merely  modify  the  old  powers ; 
and  even  this,  so  far  as  the  external  world  is  concerned,  he  can  do  simj^ly  by 
using  the  power  laid  up  for  him  in  the  lirain  ;  and  all  the  changes  which  take 
place,  fall  out  according  to  the  agencies  of  Nature.  But  it  is  different  with 
God,  who  must  at  first  have  created  all  things  out  of  nothjng ;  that  is,  there 
was  a  power  to  create  in  Him,  and  this  power  He  chose  in  His  infinite  wisdon: 
and  goodness  to  exert. 


166  PRIMITIVE  COGNITIONS.  [part  it. 

Metaphysicians  have  often  used  VC17  absurd  language  about  man's  incapacity 
so  much  as  to  conceive  of  creation.  It  is  quite  true  that  man  himself  can  per- 
form nothing  similar  to  creation,  but  still  he  can  couceive  of  it.  He  can  sup- 
pose that  there  was  a  time  vrhcu  there  was  no  created  object,  and  he  can  then 
couceive  a  world  springing  into  being.  He  cannot  indeed  believe  that  this 
world  started  into  being  without  a  producing  cause,  but  he  is  not  compelled  to 
believe  that  it  was  effected  in  the  same  manner  as  we  form  a  new  ol^ject,  that 
is,  out  of  pre-existing  matter.  When  I  am  led,  as  I  am  led  on  good  evidence, 
to  look  on  this  world  as  being  produced  by  God,  I  can  conceive  it  caused  by  an 
immediate  exercise  of  His  power.  I  am  not  necessarily  led  to  believe  that  it 
must  have  been  formed  out  of  Himself,  or  out  of  any  pre-existing  substance ; 
it  may  have  been  made  not  out  of  Himself,  but  l>y  Himself,  by  the  power  that 
is  in  Him.  Nor  am  I  led  to  look  upon  the  forces  now  in  the  world  as  existing 
in  some  other  form  in  God  :  to  suppose  this  is  to  forget  that  the  mode  of  the 
operation  of  causation  varies  in  the  case  of  every  order  of  beings,  and  to  insist 
that  the  power  exercised  by  God  must  be  exerted  in  the  same  way  as  creature 
potency.  The  mode  of  the  operation  of  causation  when  God  creates,  is  quite 
as  accordant  with  our  intuitive  belief  as  the  manner  in  which  the  forces  operate 
in  the  mental  or  material  world. 

And  here  I  take  occasion  to  remark  that  the  pantheistic  doctrine  which  main- 
tains that  the  world  must  have  l^een  drawn  out  of  the  Divine  Substance,  of 
which  therefore  it  participates,  receives  no  sanction  whatever  from  the  primary 
beliefs  of  the  mind.  It  is  simply  a  rash  and  unfounded  inference  from  certain 
experiential  facts  which  are  true  of  the  creature,  luit  may  have  no  application 
to  the  Creator.  Whatever  evidence  it  may  profess  to  advance,  it  cannot  plead 
intuition  ;  and  I  may  have  occasion  to  show  elsewhere  that  there  are  intuitions 
directly  opposed  to  it,  especially  that  intuition  which  I  have  of  self  as  a  sepa- 
rate intelligence. 

There  is  another  and  a  kindred  topic  which  here  opens  to  the  view,  but  from 
the  minute  discussion  of  which  I  draw  back.  I  am  led  to  believe  that  God  is 
a  Substance,  and  an  unchanging  Substance,  unchanging  in  the  character  of  His 
voluntaiy  acts.  We  have  proof  that  He  is  a  Being  of  essential  holiness,  benev- 
olence, and  truth,  and  we  fui-ther  believe  that  He  never  will  or  can  do  an 
unrighteous  act.  On  what  ground  do  we  cling  to  this  belief?  It  seems  to  be 
founded  on  the  conviction  that  there  may  be,  that  there  is,  an  imchanging 
Substance  possessed  of  moral  excellence  which  never  can  and  never  will  be  defiled 
by  sin ;  and  are  we  not  thus,  and  this  lawfully  and  property,  carrying  up  the  law 
of  substance  and  cause  to  the  Divine  Being,  and  making  it  guarantee  for  us  the 
eternal  righteousness  of  God  ? 


BOOK  II. 

PKIMITIVE  BELIEFS. 

CHAPTER   I. 

THEIR     GENERAL    NATURE. 

Our  primary  cognitions  and  beliefs  are  very  intimately  cou- 
uected,  and  they  run  almost  insensibly  into  each  other.  Yet  they 
may  be  distingnishcd.  The  word  "cognition,"  when  we  find  it 
needful  to  separate  it  from  faith,  might  be  confined  in  strictness  to 
those  mental  energies  in  which  the  mind  looks  on  an  object  now 
present, — say  on  a  body  perceived  by  the  senses,  or  on  self  in  a 
particular  state,  or  on  a  representation  in  the  mind ;  and  then 
"faith"  would  be  applied  to  all  those  exercises  in  which  we  are 
convinced  of  the  existence  of  an  object  not  now  before  us,  or  under 
immediate  inspection. 

Philosophers  have  drawn  the  distinction  between  Presentative 
and  Representative  Knowledge.  In  the  former  the  object  is  pres- 
ent at  the  time  ;  we  perceive  it,  we  feel  it,  we  are  conscious  of  it 
as  now  and  here  and  under  our  inspection.  In  Representative 
Knowledge  there  is  an  object  now  present,  representing  an  absent 
object.  Thus  I  may  have  an  image  or  conception  of  Venice,  with 
its  decaying  beauty,  and  this  is  now  present,  and  under  the  eye  of 
consciousness ;  but  it  represents  something  absent  and  distant,  of 
the  existence  of  which  I  am  at  the  same  time  convinced.  When 
I  was  actually  in  Venice,  and  gazed  on  its  churches  and  palaces 
rising  out  of  the  waters,  there  would  be  no  propriety  in  saying 
that  I  believed  in  the  existence  of  the  city,— the  correct  phrase  is 

that  I  knew  it  to  exist.     I  know,  too,  that  I  have  at  this  moment 

(167) 


16S  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

an  idea  of  Yciiicc  ;  Ijut  as  Ycnicc  itself  is  not  Ijcforc  mc,  tlio  proper 
expression  of  my  conviction  is  tliat  I  believe  in  its  existence.  I 
maintain  tliat  whoncvci-  we  have  passed  beyond  Presentativc  Knowl- 
edge, and  are  assured  of  the  reality  of  an  absent  object,  there  faith — 
it  may  be  in  a  very  simple  form,  but  still  real  faith — has  entered  as 
an  clement.  So  far  as  I  am  conscious  of  an  imagining  of  the  past, 
or  a  judging  of  it,  or  a  reasoning  about  it,  my  mental  state  is  cogni- 
tion ;  but  so  far  as  I  am  convinced  of  the  existence  of  the  absent 
object,  my  state  of  mind  is  belief.'  In  such  examples  the  faith  is  of 
a  low  order,  and  need  not  be  distinguished  from  knowledge,  except 
for  the  purposes  of  rigid  science  ;  but  still  faith  is  there,  and  there 
in  its  essential  character ;  and  he  who  would  know  what  faith  is, 
must  view  it  in  these  lower  forms,  "  which  exist  more  simple  in 
their  elements,"  as  well  as  in  the  higher,  just  as  he  Avho  would  know 
the  nature  of  the  plant  or  animal  must  study  it  in  the  lichen  or 
zoophyte.  These  are  the  incipient  movements  of  a  mental  power 
Avhicli  is  capable  of  rising  to  the  greatest  heights  of  earth,  and  look- 
ing up  to  the  heaven  above,  which  can  call  before  it  all  time,  and 
go  forth  even  into  the  eternity  beyond. 

According  to  this  account  we  are  said  to  know  ourselves,  and 
the  objects  presented  to  the  senses  and  the  representations  (always 
however  as  presentations)  in  the  mind  ;  but  to  believe  in  objects 
which  we  have  seen  in  time  past,  but  which  are  not  now  present, 
and  in  objects  which  w^e  have  never  seen,  and  very  specially  in 
objects  which  we   can   never  fully  know,  such  as  an  Infinite  God. 

1  Tbe  distinction  between  Presentative  and  Representative  Knowledge  is  drawn  by 
Hamilton  in  his  edition  of  Reid,  Note  B.  The  view  given  by  me  in  the  text  seems  to  be 
in  accordance  with  such  language  as  the  following,  used  by  him  in  Mefaph.  Lect.  12 : 
"  Properly  speaking,  we  know  only  the  actual  and  the  present,  and  all  real  knowledge  is 
an  immediate  knowledge.  What  is  said  to  be  mediately  known  is  in  truth  not  known  to 
be,  but  only  believed  to  be."  Speaking  of  memory,  he  says :  "  It  is  not  a  knowledge  of 
the  past  at  all,  but  a  knowledge  of  the  present  and  a  belief  of  the  past."  Consistently  or 
inconsistently,  he  says  that  "  belief  always  precedes  knowledge"  (Lect.  S).  Speaking  of 
the  external  world,  he  says :  *'  We  believe  it  to  exist,  only  because  we  are  immediately 
cognizant  of  it  as  existing"  (Reid,  p.  750).  With  this  I  concur.  But  I  cannot  agree  with 
what  follows,  where  he  seems  to  found  our  knowledge  on  a  belief,  and  represents  our 
knowing  that  we  know  as  founded  on  a  belief  prior  to  or  deeper  than  knowledge.  "  If 
asked  indeed,  How  do  we  know  that  we  know  it?  .  .  .  how  do  we  know  that  this  object 
is  not  a  mere  mode  of  mind  illusively  presented  to  us  as  a  mode  of  matter?  then  indeed 
we  must  reply  that  we  do  not  (?)  in  propriety  Icnow  that  what  we  are  compelled  to  perceive 
I'.a  not-self  is  not  a  perception  of  self,  and  that  we  can  only  on  reflection  believe  such  to 
be  the  case,  in  reliance  on  the  original  necessity  of  so  believing  imposed  on  us  by  our 
nature." 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR  GENERAL  NATURE.  169 

The  mind  seems  to  begin  not  with  faith,  Lut  with  cognition.  It 
sets  out  with  the  knowledge  of  an  external  object  presented  to  it, 
and  with  a  knowledge  of  self  contemplating  that  object.  I  cannot. 
then,  agree  with  those  who  maintain  that  faith — I  mean  natural 
faith — must  precede  knowledge.  I  hold  that  knowledge,  psycho 
logically  considered,  appears  first,  and  then  faith.  But  around  our 
original  cognition  there  grows  and  clusters  a  body  of  primitive 
beliefs  which  goes  out  far  beyond  our  personal  knowledge.  Knowl- 
edge is,  after  all,  the  root  ;  but  from  this  stable  and  more  earthly- 
ground  there  spring  beliefs  which  mount  in  living  power  and  in 
lovely  form  and  colour  toward  the  sky.' 

By  this  account  we  keep  faith  from  being  wrapt  up  in  such  a 
cloud  as  it  often  is.  We  see  how  it  joins  on  to  cognition  and 
mingles  with  it.  Faith,  as  the  telescope,  shows  objects  which  un- 
aided sense  cannot  discern,  but  still  there  is  a  personal  knowledge, 
an  eye  to  guarantee  tlie  accuracy  of  the  vision.  We  have  imme- 
diate knowledge  always  with  us  ;  we  have  self  in  a  particular  state 
or  exercise  ;  bat  rising  from  this  we  believe  in  an  object  which  is 
absent, — in  the  loftier  exercises  of  faith  we  believe  in  objects 
which  we  have  never  seen,  and  which  we  can  never  see  in  this 
world.  We  are  thus  prevented  too  from  making  faith  a  mere  sub- 
jective feeling,  and  separating  it  from  things.     It  is  in  regard  to 

1  Augustine  gave  a  province  both  to  knowledge  and  faith  without  very  distinctly  clear- 
ing up  the  boundaries:  "  Quamvis  enim,  nisi  aliquid  intelligat  nemo  possit  credere  in 
Deum  ;  tainen  ipsa  fide  qua  credit,  sanetur,  et  intelligat  ampliora.  Alia  sunt  enim  quae 
nisi  intelligamus  noncredimus;  et  alia  sunt  quae  nisi  credamus  non  intelligimus"  {Eiiar. 
in,  Pmlm  118).  There  were  profound  discussions  in  the  scholastic  ages  as  to  the  relation 
of  faith  and  knowledge,  but  it  was  in  regard  to  mattei's  of  religion,  specially  of  revelation 
including  Church  authority.  Anselm  gave  the  first  or  deeper  place  to  faith  :  "  Neque  enim 
qnsero  intelligere  ut  credam,  sed  credo  nt  intelligam"  {Med.  21).  Abelard,  on  the  other 
hand  maintained,  that  we  must  begin  with  finding  reasons  to  show  the  truth  of  Christi- 
nnity,  and  thence  reach  faith,  and  go  on  to  a  higher  cognition  or  intuition  {Thcol.  ii). 
The  discussion  has  been  renewed  from  age  to  age  ever  since  by  theologians.  Romanists 
and  High  Church  Divines  have  commonly  given  the  precedence  to  faith,  and  decided  Prot- 
cstants  to  knowledge.  In  particular,  the  Puritans  represent  a  certain  amount  of  knowl- 
edge as  necessary,  to  faith,  but  also  add  that  fiith  has  a  powerful  influence  in  increasing 
knowledge.  Thus  Charnock  {Knowledrje  of  God):  "There  can  be  no  act  about  an  un- 
known object."  "  Faith  cannot  be  without  the  knowledge  of  God  and  Christ."  "  Knowl- 
edge is  antecedent  to  faith  in  the  order  of  nature."  There  was  confusion  in  this  whole 
discu.ssion  owing  to  its  not  being  determined  psychologically  what  is  tiie  precise  nature, 
and  what  are  the  diilerences,  of  knowledge  and  faith,  and  of  rea.son  and  faith.  In  every 
e.\ercise  of  mind  about  the  great  objects  and  truths  of  religion,  there  must  be  both  cogni- 
tive and  faith  elements  embraced,  and  reason  always  comprises  faith  when  it  refers  to  the 
existence  of  absent  objects.  The  relation  of  reason  and  faith  will  full  to  be  discussed  in  the 
last  chapter  of  this  volume. 


170  PBUIITirE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

objects  apprehended,  and  apprehended  because  we  have  known 
them,  or  have  known  others  with  like  qualities,  that  we  entertain 
faitli.  It  is  from  the  contemplation  of  such  objects  that  we  arc 
led  to  believe  tliat  they  have  qualities  which  do  not  fall  under 
our  immediate  cognizance.  In  a  sense  we  know  space,  for  it  is 
present  to  us  ;  certainly  body  occupying  space  is  ever  before  the 
senses  ;  but  when  we  look  en  space  as  having  no  bounds,  we  arc 
beyond  the  territory  of  knowledge,  we  have  mounted  into  the 
region  of  faith. 

An  important  question  is  here  raised.  Can  there  be  faith  without 
some  idea  of  what  is  believed  ?  I  am  convinced  that  there  is 
always  an  apprehension  of  some  kind  in  faith.  Without  an 
image  or  notion  to  fix  on,  there  could  be  no  faith.  But  to  qualify 
this  statement  we  must  take  along  with  us  several  other  truths 
equally  important.  We  may  believe  in  truths  which  we  cannot 
comprehend  in  the  sense  of  knowing  all  their  qualities  and  rela- 
tions. In  this  sense  it  may  be  said  that  we  cannot  fully  compre- 
hend any  one  object  in  earth  or  heaven  ;  for  everything  known  to 
us  has  references  to  other  things  which  are  unknown  ;  beyond  every 
country  known,  there  is  to  us  a  teri^a  incognita.  But  there  are 
objects  which  impress  us  with  tlie  conviction  that  we  have  scarcely 
any  acquaintance  with  their  nature,  and  that  there  is  much  in  them 
or  about  them  which  is  to  us  incognizable.  Thus  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  there  is  so  much  apprehended  by  us  because  revealed, 
but  there  is  more  which  we  try  in  vain  to  compass.  We  believe 
too  in  truths  which  we  cannot  reconcile  with  other  truths  ;  and  w^e 
may  adhere  to  them  resolutely  in  spite  of  improbabilities  and  diffi- 
culties. I  apprehend,  indeed,  that,  in  all  such  cases  our  intellectual 
nature-  will  constrain  us  to  believe  that  there  must  be  some  method 
of  reconciliation,  though  the  link  cannot  be  perceived  by  us.  Were 
it  shown  in  regard  to  any  proposition  that  it  is  inconsistent  with 
an  acknowledged  truth,  I  suppose  our  faith  in  it  would  vanish. 
Could  it  be  demonstrated — which  however  it  never  has  been — that 
a  primary  faith  is  contradicted  by  any  other  primary  truth,  I  be- 
lieve we  should  be  landed  in  absolute  scepticism.  Further,  we 
may  believe  objects  to  possess  qualities  of  which  we  have  no 
notion.      Thus  in   heaven  there  are  pleasures  sucli  as  it  hath  not 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR  GENERAL  NATURE.  171 

entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive.  Thus,  too,  on  earth  we 
often  find  effects  proceeding  from  causes  which  are  utterly  un- 
known. Still  even  in  such  cases  there  is  an  apprehension  ;  there 
is  an  apprehension  of  an  object  with  a  quality  ;  there  is  an  appre- 
hension of  a  place  with  pleasures  of  a  kind  different  from  those 
which  we  enjoy  on  earth  ;  there  is  the  apprehension  of  a  cause 
producing  this  effect.  In  such  exercises  the  mind  is  impressed  at 
times  painfully,  at  times  sublimely,  with  the  inadequacy  of  its 
ideas  to  represent  the  object,  and  this  is  often  one  of  the  peculiar 
features  of  our  faith,  marking  it  out  from  our  clear  intellectual 
notions  and  judgments.  In  many  of  our  faiths  the  mind  sees  but  a 
speck  of  light  in  midst  of  circumambient  darkness. 

The  two,  knowledge  and  faith,  differ  psychologically,  and  there 
are  important  philosophic  ends  to  be  served  by  distinguishing 
them  ;  but  after  all  it  is  more  important  to  fix  our  attention  on 
their  points  of  agreement  and  coincidence.  The  belief  has  a  basis 
of  cognition,  the  cognition  has  a  superstructure  of  beliefs.  The  one 
conviction,  equally  with  the  other,  carries  within  itself  its  validity 
and  authority.  No  man  is  entitled  to  restrict  himself  to  cognitions, 
and  refuse  to  attend  or  to  yield  to  the  beliefs  which  he  is  also  led 
to  entertain  by  the  very  constitution  of  his  mind.  No  man  can 
do  so,  in  fact.  Every  man  must  act  upon  his  native  beliefs  as  well 
as  upon  his  cognitions.  He  requires  no  external  consideration  to 
lead  him  to  trust  in  the  one  any  more  than  in  the  other,  for  each 
has  its  sufficiency  in  itself.  He  who  would  weakly  give  up  his 
native  faiths  because  assaults  are  made  on  them,  and  doggedly  re- 
solve to  yield  to  nothing  but  immediate  cognitions,  will  find  that 
the  sceptic  who  has  driven  him  from  the  beliefs  will  go  on  to 
attack  the  cognitions  likewise,  and  that  he  can  defend  the  cogni- 
tions only  on  grounds  which  might  have  enabled  him  to  stand  by 
his  credences  likewise.  On  the  other  hand,  I  grieve  over  the  at- 
tempts, for  the  last  age  or  two,  of  a  school  of  thinkers  who  labour 
to  prove  that  the  understanding  or  the  speculative  reason  leads  to 
scepticism  and  nihilism,  and  then  appeal  to  faith  to  save  us  from 
the  abyss  before  us.  I  have  no  toleration  for  those  who  tell  us 
with  a  sigh,  too  often  of  affectation,  that  they  are  very  sorry  that 
knowledge  or  reason  yields  to  insoluble  doubts  and  contradiction?, 


172  PIUMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

from  whieli  ilicy  arc  longing  to  be  delivered  by  some  mysterious 
faith.  It  is  time  to  put  an  end  to  this  worse  than  civil  strife,  to 
this  setting  of  one  part  of  the  soul  against  another.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  understanding,  or  the  reason,  or  any  other  power  of 
the  mind,  lands  us  in  scepticism.  Each  cognitive  faculty  conducts 
in  its  own  way  to  its  own  truths.  The  intelligence  and  the  faitli 
are  not  conflicting,  but  conspiring  elements.  I  am  sure  tliat  the 
criticism  which  has  attacked  the  knowledge,  would,  if  followed  out, 
be  no  less  formidable  in  its  assaults  on  the  belief.  In  these  pages 
I  am  endeavouring  to  show  how  they  concur  and  cooperate,  being 
almost  always  associated  in  one  concrete  act,  which  we  analyse 
merely  for  scientific  ends.^ 

But  while  we  must  yield  to  our  intuitive  beliefs  as  well  as  per- 
ceptions, we  are  not  therefore  to  suppose  that  our  faiths  are  beyond 
inspection  and  above  examination.  They  are  liable  to  be  tried, 
and  should  at  times  be  tried,  by  the  very  same  tests  as  our  cogni- 
tions. We  are  not  to  allow  ourselves,  without  examination  and 
without  review,  to  yield  to  whatever  may  suggest  itself  to  our  own 
minds,  or  be  recommended  to  us  by  others,  as  a  primitive  belief. 
We  must  try  the  spirits,  whether  they  are  of  God.     In  nothing  is 

1  Kant  laboured  to  demonstrate  that  the  Speculative  Reason  lands  us  in  contradictions, 
and  was  not  given  us  in  order  to  reach  objective  truth  ;  but  then  he  called  in  a  Practical 
Reason,  which  guaranteed  a  moral  law,  a  God  and  immortalit}'.  See  the  "  Methoden- 
lehre"  in  the  Kntlk.  Jacobi  admitted,  far  too  readily,  to  Kant  and  Fichte,  that  specula- 
tion and  philosophy  led  to  scepticism,  but  he  fell  back  on  Faith  (Glaube)  or  Sentiment 
(Gefiihl),  which  he  represented  as  a  Revelation  (Offenbarung).  See  his  David  Hume: 
Ueber  den  Ghuhen.,  and  Jacohi  aw  Ficlde.  lie  has  given  views  of  intuition  and  of  faith 
as  true  as  they  are  beautiful ;  but  he  has  not  unfolded  the  precise  nature  of  faith,  nor 
seen  its  relation  to  the  understanding.  Even  Fichte,  after  trying  to  show  that  knowledge 
(Wisseu)  leads  to  an  absolute  idealism,  in  which  we  know  not  whether  our  very  thought 
may  not  be  a  dream,  resorts  to  Faith  (Glaube),  and  allows  an  appeal  to  the  Heart  (Herz) 
{Bestimmung  des  Atenscheri  Buch  iii.  Glaube).  Sir  W.  Hamilton  maintains  that  "  all 
that  we  know  is  phenomenal  of  the  unknown"  {Discuss,  p.  044,  2d.  ed.),  and  that  "  the 
knowledge  of  Nothing  is  the  principle  or  result  of  all  true  philosophy"  (p.  600),  but  de- 
lights to  recognize  a  faith  which  looks  beyond  ;  not  explaining,  however,  what  he  means 
by  faith.  "  We  are  warned,"  he  says,  "  from  recognizing  the  domain  of  our  knowledge 
as  necessarily  coextensive  with  the  horizon  of  our  faith."  And  he  adds,  "  And  by  a 
wonderful  revelation,  we  are  thus,  in  the  very  consciousness  of  our  inability  to  conceive 
aught  above  the  i-elative  and  finite,  inspired  with  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  something 
unconditioned,  beyond  the  sphere  of  all  comprehensive  reality"  (p.  15).  Hamilton  is 
often  appealing  to  faith,  but  has  left  a  very  imperfect  account  of  it.  "  He  adopts,"  as 
Mr.  Calderwood  acutely  remarks,  "  the  Kantian  distribution  which  embraces  the  mental 
phenomena  under  the  three  divisions  of  Cognition,  Feeling,  and  Appetency.  The  first 
embraces  the  phenomena  of  knowledge;  the  second  of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  the  third  of 
will  and  desire.     If,  then,  faith  has  any  place  in  its  distribution,  it  is  to  be  found  among  the 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR   GENERAL  NATURE.  173 

man  so  apt  to  run  into  excess  and  extravagance,  into  folly  and 
error,  as  in  yielding  to  plausible  beliefs.  The  tendency  of  faith  is 
upwards,  but  it  needs  weights  and  plummets  to  hold  it  down,  lest 
it  mount  into  a  region  of  thin  air,  and  there  burst  and  dissolve. 
Fortunately  we  have  a  ready  means  at  hand  of  trying  our  consti- 
tutional beliefs,  and  determining  for  us  when  they  should  be  dis- 
allowed, and  when  they  should  be  allowed  to  flow  out  freely.  Are 
they  self-evident?  Are  they  necessary,  so  necessary  that  we  can- 
not  believe  the  opposite?  Are  they  universal?  These  three  ques- 
tions, searchingly  asked  and  honestly  answered,  will  settle  for  us 
whether  we  ought  or  ouglit  not  to  follow  a  belief  proffered  to  our 
acceptance.  We  are  at  liberty  to  employ  a  belief  in  argument, 
appeal,  and  speculation,  only  under  the  same  conditions  as  a  cog- 
nition ;  that  is,  having  shown  that  it  is  a  constitutional  one,  wo 
must  further  determine  more  accurately  its  nature  and  law,  its 
extent  and  limits.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  can  we  hope  on  the  one 
hand  to  be  kept  from  mistaking  our  own  fancies,  misapprehensions, 
wishes,  or  prejudices,  for  primitive  and  heaven-born  beliefs,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  be  justified  in  appealing  to  the  faiths  which 
have  the   sanction   of  our  constitution,  and  the  God  who  gave  us 

phenomena  of  knowledge"  {Philosopliy  of  the  Infinite,  where  are  many  fine  remarks  on 
faith  and  knowledge,  2d  ed.  p.  136).  But  the  truth  is,  it  is  not  clear  in  which  of  the 
three  divisions  Kant  or  Hamilton  would  put  faith.  The  difficulty  of  finding  a  place  for 
faith,  and  we  may  add,  for  conscience  and  imagination,  shows  that  their  threefold  division 
of  the  mental  attributes  is  defective;  the  same  may  be  said  of  that  of  Professor  Bain. 
{Senses  and  Intellect,  pp.  2-10,  and  App.  I.)  But  passing  over  this,  it  would  almost  look  as 
if  Hamilton  would  have  to  put  faith  into  the  compartment  of  feeling.  "  Knowledge  and 
belief  differ  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind.  Knowledge  is  certainty  founded  on  intuition. 
Belief  is  certainty  founded  upon  feeling"  {Logic,  Lect.  37).  We  cannot  conceive  a  more 
radically  detective  account  than  this  of  faith,  to  found  it  upon  feeling,  which  he  e.xplains 
as  consisting  in  pleasure  and  pain.  The  disciples  of  Hamilton  have  not  thrown  any  light  on 
the  subject.  Faith  is  e.xplained  by  Professor  Fraser  {Essays,  p.  32),  as  "  the  belief  of  prin- 
ciples which  in  themselves  are  incognizable  or  irreconcilable  by  the  understanding,  and 
yet  unquestionable."  But  surely  we  have  faith  in  God  who  yet  is  not  incognizable.  Pro- 
fessor Veitch  says  (Art.  Hamilton  in  Diet.  Univ.  Biog.),  "The  absolute  or  infinite  is  cast 
beyond  the  sphere  of  thought  and  science ;  it  is  still,  however,  allowed  by  Hamilton  to 
remain  in  some  sense  in  consciousness,  for  it  is  grasped  by  faith,  and  faith  is  a  conscious 
act.  The  question,  accordingly,  at  once  meets  us:  In  what  sense  and  how  far  can  theie 
be  an  object  within  consciousness  which  is  not  properly  Within  thought  or  knowledge? 
In  other  words,  how  far  is  our  faith  in  the  infinite  intelligent  and  intelligible?  This  point 
demands  further  and  more  detailed  treatment  than  it  has  met  with  either  at  the  hands  of 
Sir  W.  Hamilton  himself,  or  any  one  who  has  sought  to  carry  out  his  principles."  For 
years  past  I  have  been  calling  on  the  disciples  of  Hamilton  to  explain  what  they  mean  by 
faith.  Till  this  point  is  cleared  up,  there  is  an  unfiUed-up  chasm  in  the  whole  psychology 
and  philosophy  of  the  school. 


174  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

our  constitution,  and  in  usin^  them  as  a  basis  on  which  to  rear  a 
fabric  of  philosophical,  or  ethical,  or  tlicological  truths. 

But  tlic  question  is  started,  Whence  the  seeming  mistakes  of 
memory  ?  We  find  at  times  two  honest  witnesses  giving  different 
accounts  of  the  same  transaction.  We  have  all  found  ourselves  at 
fault  in  our  recollections  on  certain  occasions.  I  believe  we  must 
account  for  the  seeming  treachery  of  the  memory  in  much  the 
same  way  as  we  do  for  the  deception  of  the  senses.  There  ever 
mingle  with  our  proper  recollections  more  or  fewer  inferences,  and 
in  these  there  may  be  errors.  In  order  to  clear  up  the  subject  we 
must  draw  the  distinction  between  our  natural  or  pure  reminis- 
cences and  those  mixed  ones  in  which  there  are  processes  of 
reasoning. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  determine  what  bare  memory  consists  in 
apart  from  its  adjuncts.  Writers  on  mental  science  have  scarcely 
entered  upon  the  subject,  they  have  certainly  not  discussed  it.  It 
is  clear  that  in  every  act  of  memory  proper  there  must  be  a  recol- 
lection of  self,  and  of  self  in  a  certain  state,  say  perceiving  feeling 
or  thinking.  When  an  external  thing  has  been  observed,  or  an 
occurrence  witnessed,  there  will  coexist  with  the  remembrance 
of  self  a  recollection  of  the  object  or  event.  Very  frequently  the 
thing  perceived  fills  the  mind,  and  the  coexisting  reminiscence  of 
self  is  scarcely  attended  to.  Such,  I  suppose,  must  be  our  original 
memory.  Such,  I  suppose,  must  be  the  whole  memory  of  the  infant, 
and  hence  its  floating  and  uncertain  character. 

But  around  our  pure  memories  there  will  gather  a  host  of  con- 
structions. Thus,  we  cannot  directly  remember  that  such  an  event 
happened  ten  years  ago,  for  this  would  imply  a  continuous  recol- 
lection of  the  whole  ten  years.  But  we  recollect  that  it  happened 
at  the  same  time  with  some  incident  which  we  have  fixed  ten  years 
back,  or  before  some  occurrence  which  took  place  nine  years  ago. 
The  memory  thus  rises  out  of  its  vague  infant  state,  and  grows  by 
an  association  with  other  mental  exercises,  and  by  an  adhesion  of 
accumulated  experiences.  We  fix  on  dates  in  our  personal  history 
such  as  the  time  of  our  going  to  school,  or  of  our  leaving  school, 
or  of  our  going  to  college,  or  entering  on  the  business  of  life,  or 
changing  our  place  of  residence  or  mode  of  life,  and  we  arrange  all 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR  GENERAL  NATURE.  175 

events  in  the  intervals.     It  is  thus,  too,  that  in  history  we  settle 
the  dates  of  great  epochs,  and  hook  lesser  events  upon  them. 

In  estimating  distance  in  time  we  lay  down  rules  in  many 
respects  analogous  to  those  by  which  we  calculate  distance  by  the 
eye.  We  see  an  object  across  a  country  covered  with  dwellings,  or 
undulated  by  hills  and  hollows  all  under  the  view,  and  we  con- 
clude that  the  distance  is  great.  Again,  we  look  on  a  house  across 
an  arm  of  the  sea  or  a  plain  in  which  there  is  no  prominent  object, 
and  we  make  the  distance  less  than  it  is.  In  much  the  same  way 
the  days  and  hours  seem  long  when  we  are  discontented  with  the 
present,  or  anxiously  looking  for  some  expected  event,  and  so  fre- 
quently contemplating  the  passing  of  time,  and  comparing  the 
present  with  the  past.  On  the  other  hand,  those  portions  of  time 
seem  short  in  which  we  are  pleasantly  absorbed  in  the  present,  and 
so  are  kept  from  looking  back  on  the  past,  or  so  much  as  remem- 
bering that  there  is  a  past.  The  subject  is  an  interesting  and  an 
unexplored  one,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  further  upon  it  in 
this  treatise.  Enough  has  been  advanced  to  show  that  the  mis- 
takes of  the  memory  may  arise  from  the  associated  inferences,  and 
not  from  the  pure  reminiscences  which  are  often  faint  but  are 
never  fallacious. 


176  PRBIITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 


CHAPTER    II. 
SPACE    AND     TIME. 

Of  space  in  the  concrete  we  have  an  immediate  knowledge ;  that 
is,  by  the  senses,  certainly  by  some  of  them,  such  as  the  touch  and 
the  sight,  most  probably  by  all  of  them,  we  know  bodies,  say  our 
own  bodily  organism  as  extended,  that  is,  as  occupying  space.  By 
abstraction  we  can  fix  our  attention  on  the  space  as  distinct  from 
associated  qualities,  and  by  inward  reflection  we  can  gather  what 
are  the  convictions  attached.  These  convictions  pass  beyond  knowl- 
edge proper,  and  become  beliefs,  that  is,  convictions  in  regard  to 
something  which  we  do  not  immediately  know,  nay,  which  we  may 
never  be  able  to  know. 

With  time,  also,  we  have  an  immediate  acquaintance.  In  sense- 
perception  and  self-consciousness  we  know  a  particular  object  or 
mental  state  as  now  present.  Our  consciousness  is  continuous ; 
speedily  does  immediate  consciousness  slide  into  memory  ;  the 
present  becomes  past,  and  is  remembered  as  past.  Tlie  child's 
organism  is  now  in  a  state  of  pain  ;  immediately  after  the  pain  is 
gone,  but  the  pain  of  the  past  is  remembered,  and  remembered  as 
being  past.  Already,  then,  there  is  the  idea  of  time  always  in  the 
concrete, — we  remember  something  as  having  been  under  our  con- 
sciousness in  tlie  past.  By  abstraction  we  can  then  think  of  the 
time  as  different  from  the  event  remembered  in  time ;  and  by  in- 
trospection we  can  ascertain  the  nature  of  the  attached  convictions. 
Many  of  these  are  of  the  nature  of  faiths  going  far  beyond  what  is, 
or  ever  can  be,  immediately  known. 

Space  and  time  mingle  with  all  our  perceptions.  Yet  after  all 
we  can  say  little  about  them  ;   all  that  we  can   do  as  metaphysi- 


BOOK  II.]  SPACE  AND   TIME.  177 

cians  is  to  analyse  and  express  onv  original  convictions.  It  belongs 
to  the  matlieraatician  to  evolve  deductively  what  is  involved  in 
certain  of  them.  In  unfolding  the  necessary  convictions  we  may 
make  the  following  affirmations : — 

I.  Time  and  space  have  a  reality  independent  of  the  percipient 
mind,  and  out  of  the  percipient  mind.  The  intelligence  does  not 
create  them,  it  discovers  them,  and  it  discovers  them  as  having  an 
existence  independent  of  the  mind  contemplating  them,  as  having 
this  existence  whether  the  mind  contemplates  them  or  no,  and  an 
existence  out  of  and  beyond  the  mind  as  it  thinks  of  them.  He 
who  denies  this,  is  in  the  very  act  setting  aside  one  of  the  clearest 
of  native  principles,  and  has  left  himself  no  standpoint  from  which 
he  can  repel  any  proposal  suggested  to  himself  or  offered  by  anotlier, 
to  set  aside  any  other  conviction,  or  all  other  convictions.  If  some 
one  affirm  that  space  has  no  objective  existence,'  he  leaves  it  com- 
petent for  any  other  coming  after  him,  to  maintain  that  the  objects 
perceived  in  space  have  no  reality.  He  who  allows  tliat  time  may 
have  no  reality  except  in  the  contemplative  mind,  will  find  him- 
self greatly  troubled  to  answer  the  sceptic,  when  he  insists  that 
the  events  in  time  are  quite  as  unreal  as  the  time  is  in  which  they 
are  perceived  as  having  occurred.  There  is  only  one  sure  and 
consistent  mode  of  avoiding  these  troublesome  and  dangerous  con- 
sequences, and  that  is  by  standing  up  for  the  veracity  of  all  our 
fundamental  perceptions,  and,  among  others,  of  our  convictions 
regarding  the  reality  of  space  and  time. 

According  to  Kant,  space  and  time  are  the  forms  given  by  the 
mind  to  the  phenomena  which  are  presented  through  the  senses, 
and  are  not  to  be  considered  as  having  anything  more  than  a  sub- 
jective existence.  It  is  one  of  the  most  fatal  heresies — that  is, 
dogmas  opposed  to  the  revelations  of  consciousness — ever  intro- 
duced into  philosophy,  and  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  the  aberrations 
in  the  school  of  speculation  which  followed.     For  those  who  were 

>  Lucretius  (i.  460)  maintained  that  time  has  no  existence  of  itself,  "  Tempus  item  per 
ge  non  est."  Very  possibly  space  and  time  may  have  no  independent  existence.  Very 
possibly  there  may  be  no  such  thing  as  unoccupied  space,  or  time  without  an  event.  Most 
probably,  space  and  time  may  not  be  independent  of  God.  Still  they  exist,  and  exist  inde- 
pendent of  our  contemplation  of  them. 
12 


ITS  PRUIITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

taught  that  the  mind  could  create  the  space  and  time,  soon  learned 
to  suppose  that  the  mind  could  also  create  the  objects  and  events 
cognized  as  in  space  and  time,  till  the  whole  external  universe 
became  ideal,  and  all  reality  was  supposed  to  lie  in  a  series  of  con- 
nected mental  forms.  He  wlio  would  arrest  tlie  stream,  must  seek 
to  stop  it  at  tlio  place  wlicnce  it  flowed  out ;  otherwise  all  his  efforts 
will  be  ineffectual.' 

II.  Space  and  time  arc  continuous,  that  is,  they  extend  out, 
flow  on,  without  break,  separation,  or  interruption.  In  this  respect 
they  are  different  from  matter  or  body,  which  may  be  broken  into 
parts,  and  the  parts  separated  from  each  other.  But  there  can  be 
no  gaps  in  space,  no  cessation  in  time.  There  are,  and  can  be,  no 
variations  in  the  one  or  other.  We  do  speak  of  times  changing, 
but  we  mean  tlie  circumstances  in  time.  We  say  tempora  mutantur, 
but  the  changes  are  in  the  events,  which  miitantur  in  illis. 

This  is  one  of  several  circumstances  which  has  made  space  and 
time  to  be  classed  together.  Yet  while  they  may  be  grouped  under 
one  head,  they  are  not  identical,  and  they  have  their  points  of 
difference.  In  particular,  space  has  three  dimensions, — length, 
breadth,  and  depth ;  that  is,  we  may  contemplate  it  as  extending 
along  any  given  line,  as  spreading  out  in  a  surface,  or  as  going  out 
in  all  directions.  Time  again  has  only  succession,  or  priority  and 
posteriority.     We  often  apply  to  time  language  derived  from  space, 

>  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  in  an  article  on  Villers,  "  Philosophic  de  Kant,"  in  No.  ii.  (1803) 
of  the  Edlnlmrgh  Eevlew,  dwells  on  this.  "The  truth  of  space  and  of  the  world  being 
to  our  reasoning  scepticism  the  same,  we  cannot  deny  space  and  admit  the  reality  of  sen- 
sible objects."  D.  Stewart,  after  affirming  that  the  idea  of  space  "  is  manifestly  accom- 
panied with  an  irresistible  conviction  that  space  is  necessarily  existent,  and  that  its 
annihilation  is  impossible,"  adds,  "  to  call  this  proposition  in  question,  is  to  open  a  door 
to  universal  scepticism"  (Disser.  p.  597).  In  our  day  we  find  the  greatest  opponent  of 
the  Dialectic  of  Hegel  who  has  appeared,  taking  the  same  view.  "  Hiernach  sind  Raum 
und  Zeit  etwas  Subjectives  und  zwar  nach  Kant  etwas  nur  Subjectives.  Wenn  dies  folgt, 
so  verfluchtet  sich  damit  die  ganze  Weltansicht  in  Erscheinung,  und  Erscheinung  ist  vom 
Scheine  nicht  weit  entfernt.  Wenn  Raum  und  Zeit  nur  und  ausschliessend  Subjectives 
sind,  so  drangt  sich  allenthalben  diese  Zutbat  ein.  Wie  die  Luftschicht  zwischeu  dem 
Auge  und  dem  Gegenstaude,  wirft  sie  auf  alles  eiue  fremde  Trubung;  denn  alles  erscheint 
in  Raum  und  Zeit,  die  nur  aus  uns  geboreu  sind.  Wir  erkeunen  nun  nichts  an  sich  ; 
denn  die  VerstandesbegrifFe  haben  (nach  Kant)  nur  Anwendung  durch  diese  Formen  der 
Anschaunng,  und  die  Vernunftbegritt'e  suchen  wieder  nur  eine  Einheit  fur  die  Verstandes- 
erkenntniss.  Wie  wollen  wir  uns  von  dem  Zauberkreise  losen,  da  er  vielmehr  unser 
eigenstes  Wesen  est?"  (Trendelenburg,  Logische  Uiiter.tuchunyeny  b.  i.  v.)  Sir  W.  Hamil- 
ton agrees  with  Kant  as  to  the  a  priori  idea  of  space,  and  to  avoid  the  difficulties  calls   in 


i 


BOOK  II.]  SPACE  AND  TIME.  179 

and  we  represent  time  as  a  line,  and  speak  of  it  as  being  only  in 
one  direction.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  such  language  is 
nsed  metaphorically,  and  has  no-  literal  meaning  as  applied  to 
time.  Still  it  points  to  a  truth,  and  specifies  a  difference  between 
space  and  time.'  But  in  regard  to  their  extension  or  flow,  both 
are  continuous,  and  spread  out  or  run  on  without  a  possible 
division. 

But  it  will  be  urged,  that  the  question  is  often  discussed  as  to 
whether  space  and  time  are  infinitely  divisible,  and  that  certain 
mathematicians  maintain  that  they  have  demonstrated  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  space.  In  looking  at  this  question,  it  is  desirable 
first  of  all  to  have  it  settled  in  what  sense  extension  is  capable  of 
division.  We  cannot  divide  space  in  the  sense  in  which  we  divide 
matter.  In  dividing  body  we  separate  one  part  of  it  from  another, 
so  as  to  leave  a  space  between.  We  can  thus  divide  an  apple, 
and  keep  one  part  of  it  in  our  hand,  and  lay  the  otlier  on  the 
table.  But  we  cannot  thus  separate  or  isolate  space  apart  from 
space.  In  the  sense  of  separation,  Ave  cannot  with  propriety  speak 
of  the  infinite  divisibility  of  space,  for  it  is  not  divisible  at  all, 
either  finitely  or  infinitely.  The  same  remark  holds  good  of  time. 
The  mind  declares  that  tlie  separation  of  space  from  space,  or  of 
time  from  time,  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things.'^ 

There  may,  however,  be  relations  discovered  both  in  space  and 
time.  We  can  conceive  of  less  or  more  of  extension,  and  of  pro- 
portions between  the  less  and  the  more  ;  the  one  may  be  twice  or 

an  a  posteriori  notion  ; — "  We  have  a  twofold  cognition  of  space  ;  (a)  an  a  priori  or  native 
imagination  of  it  in  general,  as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  possibility  of  thought;  and 
(h)  under  that  an  a  posteriori  or  adventitious  percept  of  it,  in  particular  as  contingently 
apprehended  in  this  or  that  complexus  of  sensations"  (Reid's  Coll.  Writ.  p.  SS2).  "  In 
this  I  venture  a  step  beyond  Reid  and  Stewart,  no  less  than  beyond  Kant"  (p.  126).  A 
simpler  and  a  more  natural  account  of  the  relations  between  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  would 
bring  these  two  notions  to  a  unity. 

1  It  has  been  asked  why  the  mind  gives  three  dimensions  to  space  and  only  one  to  time. 
Those  who  regard  space  and  time  as  the  creation  of  the  mind,  may  amuse  themselves 
with  answering  this  question.  There  is  profound  sense  in  the  following  remarks  of  Sir 
J.  Herschel,  in  his  "  Review  of  Whewell"  (Essa>/s,  p.  202) : — "  The  reason,  we  conceive,  why 
we  apprehend  things  without  us,  is  that  they  are  without  us.  We  take  it  for  granted  that 
they  exist  in  space,  because  they  do  so  exist,  and  because  such  their  existence  is  a  matter 
of  direct  perception,  which  can  neither  be  explained  in  words  nor  contravened  in  imagina- 
tion ;  because,  in  short,  space  is  a  reality,"  That  which  has  parts,  proportions,  and 
tmsceptibilities  of  exact  measurement,  must  be  a  '  thing.'  " 

a  This  view  is  developed  with  great  acuteness  in  Gillespie's  Necessary  Existence  of  Deity 
(Exam.  Antith.  Hefut.  Part  iii). 


180         '  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ir. 

ten  times  as  much  as  the  other.  All  tliis  wc  are  allowed,  nay 
necessitated,  to  think.  The  science  which  treats  of  quantity,  that 
is,  mathomatics,  lias  specially  to  do  with  their  relations.  There 
may  be  little  or  no  impropriety  in  calling;  these  proportions  parts, 
provided  we  do  not  misunderstand  the  language  we  employ,  or 
understand  it  as  implying  tliat  between  two  spaces  there  can  be  an 
interval  in  wliich  there  is  no  space.  Wliat  is  meant  by  the  infinite 
division  of  space  seems  to  be,  that  fixing  our  thoughts  on  any 
given  section  or  proportion  of  space,  say  the  tliousandth  part  of  an 
inch,  we  are  at  liberty  to  conceive  of  the  half  of  it,  and  again  of  the 
half  of  the  quotient,  and  so  on  indefinitely  as  far  as  may  serve  our 
purpose  or  we  may  choose.  Some  of  these  subjects  will  be  resumed 
when  we  come  to  consider  tliose  primitive  judgments  wliich  relate  to 
quantity. 

But  before  leaving  the  subject  immediately  before  us,  it  is  of 
importance  to  have  it  noticed  that  our  convictions  say  nothing 
whatever  on  (what  is  a  very  different  matter  from  the  divisibility 
of  space,  though  the  two  have  often  been  confounded)  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter.  This  latter  is  a  question  which  can  be 
settled  by  nothing  but  experience  ;  experience  at  this  present  stage 
of  science  says  nothing  whatever  on  the  subject,  and  I  suspect  will 
never  be  able  to  settle  it  on  one  side  or  other.  There  might  be 
limits  to  man's  capacity  of  dividing  body  which  would  not  be 
limits  to  other  beings,  and  whether  there  could  be  any  limits  to  a 
Being  of  Infinite  Power  is  a  question  which  it  transcends  our 
faculties  to  answer,  and  which  therefore  we  should  not  attempt  to 
answer. 

But  the  difficulty  has  been  started,  Are  space  and  time  made  up 
of  parts  ?  and  if  so,  are  infinite  time  and  space  made  up  of  parts  ? 
To  this  I  reply,  first  and  decisively,  that  we  cannot  conceive  thera 
as  made  up  of  partitions,  or  separable  parts,  as  an  apple  or  an  orange 
is,  or  as  the  earth  is,  or  the  sun  is.  But  then,  secondly,  we  can 
conceive  proportions  in  space  and  time,  and  if  we  take  any  of  these 
proportional  sections,  and  divide  it  into  two,  thought  will  compel 
us  to  say  that  the  two  must  make  up  the  whole.  In  this  sense 
the  parts  make  up  the  whole,  that  is,  the  subsections  make  up  the 
section.     If  the  question  be  extended  beyond  this,  and  it  be  asked, 


BOOK  IT.]  SPACE  AND   TIME.  181 

Is  infiuite  space  niaclo  up  of  parts  ?  I  answer,  that  as  we  can  have 
no  adequate  notion  of  infinite  space,  so  we  cannot  be  expected  to 
answer  all  the  questions  whicli  may  be  put  regarding  it.  It  is 
certain  that  neither  infinite  space  nor  finite  space  is  made  up  of 
separable  parts.  We  can  speak  intelligibly  of  proportions  in 
finite  space,  and  determine  their  relations  to  each  other  and  the 
whole.  I  tremble  to  speak  of  the  proportions  of  infinite-  space, 
lest  I  be  using  language  which  has  or  can  have  no  proper  meaning, 
and  the  signification  attached  to  which  by  me  or  others  might  be 
altogether  inapplicable  to  such  a  subject.  Still  there  are  proposi- 
tions which  we  might  intelligibly  use.  It  is  self-evident  that  any 
proportion  of  space  must  be  less  than  infinite  space.  And  if 
infinite  space  can  be  conceived  as  having  proportions,  and  we 
could  conceive  all  these  proportions,  then  these  proportions  would 
be  equal  to  the  whole.  But  as  we  cannot  adequately  conceive 
the  whole,  so  neither  can  we  conceive  of  the  proportions  of  the 
■whole.  TVe  are  in  a  region  dark  and  pathless  and  directionless, 
and  we  may  as  well  draw  back  at  once,  for  nothing  is  to  be  gained 
by  advancing,'  We  are  on  the  verge  of  another  subject,  to  which 
we  must  turn. 

III.  Space  and  time  have  and  can  have  no  limits.  Nor  is  this 
a  mere  negative  proposition,  as  some  have  declared  it  to  be  ;  it  is 
a  positive  affirmation  that  to  whatever  point  we  go,  in  reality  or 
in  imagination,  there  must  be  a  space  and  time  beyond.  Nor  is 
it,  as  it  has  been  represented,  an  impotency  of  mind.  It  is  not  a 
mere  incapacity  to  conceive  that  wlien  we  go  a  certain  length  back 
or  forward  in  time,  or  out  into  space,  there  time  and  space  should 
cease.  It  is  a  conviction  of  a  positive  kind,  that  beyond  these 
points,  or  beyond  any  other  space  conceivable,  there  must  still  be 
time  and  space.  This,  as  will  be  shown  more  fully  forthwith,  is  a 
truth  self-evident,  necessary,  universal.  If  we  were  carried  out  to 
the  utmost  point  to  whicli  the  furthest-seeing  telescope  can  reach, 
or  beyond  tliis   as   far  as   imagination  can  range,  we  should  con- 

1  "  Non  igitur  respondere  curabimus  iis,  qui  quujruiit  an  si  daretur  linea  infinita,  ejus 
media  pars  esset  etiatn  infinita;  vel  an  nuraeras  infinitus  sit  par  anve  impar;  et  talia; 
quia  de  iis  nuUi  videntur  debere  cogitare  nisi  qui  mentem  suam  infinltam  esse  arbitrantur" 
Descartes,  Prin.  p.  i.  26). 


182  PBIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

fidcntly  stretch  forth  our  hand  into  an  outer  region,  believing  that 
tlierc  must  be  space  into  which  it  miglit  enter,  and  that  if  it  wero 
hindered,  it  must  be  by  body  occupying  space. 

There  is  more  than  this  embraced  in  our  native  conviction.  We 
arc  constrained  to  believe,  as  to  the  space  and  time  which  we 
know  in  part,  and  which  we  are  constrained  to  regard  as  beyond 
our  power  of  imagination,  that  they  are  such  that  no  addition 
could  be  made  to  tliem.  This  is  a  further  and  a  most  important 
element  in  our  conviction.  We  intuitively  know  space  and  time  : 
with  this  we  start.  Looking  to  the  space  and  time  which  we  thus 
know,  we  are  constrained  to  regard  them  as  ever  going  beyond  our 
image  of  them.  But  we  do  more,  we  are  convinced  that  they  are 
such  in  their  very  nature,  that  no  further  space  and  time  could  be 
added  to  them.  Join  these  elements  together,  and  so  far  as  I  can 
discover  by  reflection  on  the  operations  of  my  own  mind,  we  have 
the  conception  and  belief  whicli  the  mind  of  man  is  able  to  attain 
as  to  the  infinity  of  space  and  time. 

But  we  are  already  in  the  heart  of  the  subject  of  the  infinite,  to 
which  a  separate  section  must  be  allotted.  In  this  section  we 
have  yet  to  take  up  certain  difiiculties  which  press  on  us  when  we 
contemplate  space  and  time.  We  may  have  occasion  to  show,  at 
a,  later  part  of  this  work,  that  our  very  cognitions  often  land  us 
in  mysteries,  that  is,  in  propositions  to  which  we  must  assent,  but 
■which  have  bearings  which  we  cannot  comprehend.  To  a  still 
greater  extent  is  it  of  the  nature  of  faith  ever  to  be  going  out  into 
darkness.  For  the  truths  believed  in,  may  not  be  fully  compre- 
hended in  themselves,  and  their  relations  may  be  altogether  be- 
yond our  ken.  It  should  be  frankly  acknowledged  that  we  are 
landed  in  mysteries  which  tlie  human  intellect  cannot  explicate, 
whenever  we  inquire  beyond  the  narrow  limits  within  which  our 
convictions  restrain  us.  But  it  is  of  all  courses  the  most  foolish 
and  suicidal  to  urge  the  difficulties  connected  with  space  and 
time  as  a  reason  for  setting  aside  our  intuitive  convictions  respect- 
ing them,  say  in  regard  to  their  reality.  Doubtless  we  are  landed 
in  some  perplexities  by  allowing  that  they  are  real,  but  we 
are  landed  in  more  hopeless  difficulties  and  in  far  more  serious 
consequences,  when  we  deny  their  reality  ;   and   there   is  this   im- 


BOOK  II J  SPACE  AND  TBIE.  183 

portaut  difference  between  the  cases,  tliat  in  the  one  the  difficul- 
ties arise  from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  whereas  in  the  other  they 
are  created  by  our  own  unwarranted  affirmations  and  spccuhv 
tions. 

But  what  are  space  and  time  ?  is  the  question  that  will  be 
pressed  on  us.  To  this  I  reply,  that  it  is  true  of  them,  as  of  the 
objects  of  every  other  intuitive  conviction,  that  we  cannot  explain 
them  except  by  referring  to  our  original  perception.  All  that  has 
been  attempted  in  this  section  is  to  bring  out  clearly  what  is  involved 
in  the  intuition. 

But  it  will  be  asked,  Are  they  substances,  are  they  modes,  or 
are  they  relations  ?  To  this  I  reply,  that  these  questions  relate  not 
so  much  to  the  nature  of  space  or  time  as  the  classification  of 
them,  and  that  they  are  not  to  be  classified  with  substances,  modes, 
or  relations.'  We  cannot  call  them  substances,  for  we  do  not  know 
that  they  have  power  or  action.  Nor  can  we  call  them  modes, 
for  we  have  no  intuitive  knowledge  of  any  substance  in  which 
they  inhere.  And  they  are  certainly  more  than  relations  of  one 
thing  to  another,  for  we  know  no  two  or  more  things  which  by 
their  relation  could  yield  space  and  time.  They  are  not  then  to 
be  arranged  v/ith  such  cognitions  as  these.  They  seem  indeed  to 
be  entitled  to  be  put  in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  resemble  sub- 
stances, modes,  relations,  only  in  that  they  are  existences,  entities, 
realities. 

Certain  mystical  divines  and  philosophers  are  accustomed  to 
speak  of  space  and  time  as  having  no  reality  to  the  Divine  mind. 
It  follows,  I  think,  that  if  they  have  no  reality  to  the  God  who 
knows  all  truth,  tliey  can,  properly  speaking,  have  no  reality  at 
all.  If  our  convictions  testify  (as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show) 
that  they   have   a  reality,   it  follows,  I   think,   that   they   have   a 


'Leibnitz  held  space  and  time  to  be  relations  given  to  objects  by  the  mind.  "Jo 
teaois  I'Espace  pour  qnelque  de  puremext  kklatip,  conime  le  Temps;  pour  un  op.drk 
DE  COEXISTENCE,  comme  le  Temps  est  un  ordre  de  successions"  {Op.  p.  752.  See  also 
pp.  750,  769,  401).  He  speaks  of  space  and  time  as  being  "rapports,"  and  as  "ideal." 
Leibnitz  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  more  systematic  doctrine  of  Kant.  Samuel  Clarke 
argues  powerfully  that  space  and  time  are  realities,  but  makes  them  attributes,  proper- 
ties, or  modes,  of  an  eternal  substance  (see  his  Ldlem  to  Leibnitz).  I).  Stewart,  with  his 
usual  wisdom,  says  that  "space  is  neither  auhslance,  nor  an  accident^  nor  a  relation;" 
adding,  "  But  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  it  is  nothing  objective"  {Dissert,  p.  DUG). 


184  PllIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

reality  t )  ilic  Pivinc  mind.     Again,  there  arc  some  wlio  talk  of  an 
Eternal  Now  : — 

"  Nothing  is  there  to  come,  and  nothing  past, 
But  an  Eternal  Now  does  ever  last." 

These  verses  of  Cowley  embody,  as  definitely  as  can  be  done,  a 
view  which  was  countenanced  by  certain  expressions  of  Augustine, 
and  systematized  in  the  scholastic  ages,  and  which  lias  ever  since 
been  floating  in  the  statements  of  divines  in  speaking  of  God  and 
Eternity  and  Time.  But  the  language  has  either  no  meaning,  or  if 
it  has,  it  lands  us  in  hopeless  contradictions. 

It  would  have  been  very  different  if  divines  had  contented 
themselves  with  stating  that  tl\ey  do  not  know  how  space  and 
time  stand  related  to  the  Divine  mind.  We  are  here  in  the  midst 
of  a  mystery,  which  we  have  no  faculties  to  clear  up.  We  know 
that  space  and  time  ejv;ist ;  we  know  on  sufficient  evidence  that 
God  exists  :  but  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  space  and 
time  stand  related  to  God.  There  may  be  truth  in  the  statement 
of  Joannes  Damasceuus,  that  "  God  is  His  own  place,  filling  all 
things,  and  being  over  all  things,  and  Himself  containing  all 
things,"  but  how  much  truth  cannot  be  determined  by  the  limited 
mind  of  man.*  The  view  taken  by  Sir  Isaac  Xewton — "  Deus  durat 
semper  et  adest  ubique,  ct,  existcndo  semper  et  ubique,  durationem 
et  spatiura  constituit,'" — is  certainly  a  grand  one,  but  I  doubt  much 
whether  human  intelligence  is  entitled  to  affirm  dictatorially  that 
it  is  as  true  as  it  is  sublime. 

It  is  by  placing  the  subject  beyond  the  human  faculties  that  we 
are  able  to  meet  an  objection  urged  with  great  logical  power  by 
Kant,  and  usually  thought  to  be  insuperable."  If  space  and  time 
be  real  and  infinite,  then  we  have  two  infinites  ;  and  if  God  be 
also  infinite,  our  difficulties  are  increased.  For  it  is  absurd,  if  not 
contradictory,  to  suppose  that  tlicre  can  be  two  infinite  things — 
that  God  can  be  infinite  while  space  and  time  are  also  infinites. 
Now  to  this  I  might  without  tlie  possibility  of  a  positive  refutation, 
urge,  firstly,  that  there  may,  for  aught  we  know,  be  nothing  incon- 

'  'O  Qeuc  iavTov  TOTTOC  son,  Til  nuvra  nXTjpdv,  koI  ineg  to.  iravra  uv,  Kal  avTog  ami€X<JV 
r- ;  Tzavra  {Be  Orthod.  Fid.  i.  13). 
2  Scholium  at  close  of  7n7.  Nat.  rin.  Math. 
?  Kritih.  d  r.  Fern.  Die  traiiscen.  JEsthet. 


BOOK  II.]  SPACE  AND  TIME.  185 

sistent  in  supposing  tliat  there  arc  two  things,  as  space  and  time, 
the  one  unbounded  and  the  other  without  beginning  or  end,  and 
that  there  can  even  be  notliing  contradictory  in  supposing  that 
space  and  time  on  the  one  hand,  and  God  on  the  other,  may  have 
infinite  attributes.  They  could  be  liold  as  contradictory  only  in 
the  supposition  that  the  existence  of  unbounded  space  and  unend- 
ing time  were,  in  tlie  nature  of  things,  inconsistent  one  with 
another  or  with  the  existence  of  an  infinite  God  ;  which  it  may 
safely  be  said  can  never  be  proven.  As  to  how  they  could  subsist 
together,  is  a  question  we  are  not  obliged  to  answer,  for  we  must 
believe  many  separate  truths,  each  on  its  evidence,  without  being 
able  to  trace  a  connexion,  or  so  much  as  to  say  that  there  is  a 
lioiu  between  them.  But  I  plant  myself  on  far  firmer  ground, 
when  I  maintain,  secondly,  that  while  I  believe  that  space  and 
time  are  infinite,  and  that  God  is  infinite,  I  am  not  necessarily 
obliged  to  hold  that  the  infinity  of  space  and  time  is  independent 
of  the  infinity  of  God.  Who  will  venture  to  affirm  that  the  state- 
ment we  have  quoted  from  the  great  Newton  may  not  be  true  ? 
"Who  will  venture  to  affirm  tliat  space  and  time,  being  dependent 
on  God,  may  not  stand  in  a  relation  to  God,  which  is  altogether 
indefinable  and  utterly  inconceivable  by  us  ?  True,  we  are  con- 
strained to  believe  that  space  and  time  have  an  existence  inde- 
pendent of  us,  but  we  are  not  compelled  to  believe  that  they  have 
an  existence  independent  of  everything  else,  and  least  of  all  inde- 
pendent of  God  ;  we  must  keep  ourselves  from  falling  into  the 
heathen  sin  of  deifying  Chronos.  In  such  a  subject,  where  we 
have  no  light  from  intuition  or  from  experience  to  guide  us,  true 
wisdom  shows  itself  in  refusing  to  assert  or  dogmatize,  or  even  to 
speculate  ;  and  when  it  has  observed  this  rule  for  itself,  it  is  the 
better  able  to  rebuke  doubt  and  scepticism,  when  they  would  bring 
forth  their  difficulties  from  regions  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of 
liuman  knowledge. 


186  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [pakt  ii. 


CHAP  TEE   III. 

THE  INFINITE. 

The  subject  now  opening  before  us  is  a  profound  one.  In  medi- 
tating upon  it  we  feel  as  we  do  when  we  look  into  the  blue  expanse 
of  heaven,  or  when  from  a  solitary  rock  we  gaze  on  a  shoreless 
ocean  spread  all  around  us.  The  topic  has  exercised  the  pro- 
foundest  minds  since  thought  began  the  attempt  to  solve  the 
problems  of  the  universe,  and  has  been  specially  discussed  since 
Christian  theology  made  men  familiar  with  the  idea  of  an  eternal 
and  omnipresent  God.  All  that  I  profess  to  do  is  to  endeavour  to 
discover  by  induction  what  is  the  mind's  idea  and  conviction  in 
regard  to  infinity.  A  'priori  cogitation  is  not  to  be  tolerated  in  its 
proffered  determinations  of  what  our  idea  of  Infi.nity  should  be  or 
must  be.  Logical  dissection  and  division,  instead  of  aiding,  may. 
only  lead  us  into  hopeless  diflSculties.  Lofty  generalizations  em- 
bracing all  other  objects,  may  have  no  application  to  an  object 
which  from  its  very  nature  must  be  sui  generis. 

I.  Two  Negative  Peopositions  may  be  established. 

(a.)  The  mind  can  form  no  adequate  apprehension  of  the  infinite, 
in  the  sense  of  image  or  phantasm.  In  saying  so,  I  do  not  mean 
merely  that  we  cannot  construct  a  mental  picture  of  the  infinite  as 
an  attribute.  Of  no  quality  can  the  mind  fashion  a  picture  ;  it 
cannot  have  a  mental  representation  of  transparency,  apart  from  a 
transparent  substance,  and  just  as  little  can  it  picture  to  itself 
infinity  apart  from  an  infinite  duration,  or  infinite  extension,  or  arx 
infinite  God.  But  it  is  not  in  this  sense  simply  that  the  mind 
cannot  apprehend  the  infinite,  it  cannot  have  before  it  an  appre- 
hension of  an  infinite  object,  say  of  an  infinite  space,  or  an  infinite 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE.  187 

God.  For  to  image  a  thing  in  our  mind  is  to  give  it  an  extent  and 
a  boundary.  When  we  would  imagine  unlimited  space,  we  swell  out 
an  immense  volume,  but  it  has  after  all  a  boundary,  commonly  a 
spherical  one.  When  we  would  picture  unlimited  time,  we  let  out 
an  immense  line  behind  and  before,  but  tlie  rope  is  after  all  cut  at 
both  ends.  When  we  would  represent  to  ourselves  almighty  power, 
we  call  up  some  given  act  of  God,  say  creating  or  annihilating 
the  universe  ;  but  after  all,  the  work  has  a  measure,  and  may  be 
finished.  In  the  sense  of  image,  then,  the  mind  cannot  have  any 
proper  apprehension  of  infinity  as  an  attribute,  or  of  an  infinite 
object. 

(5.)  Tlie  mind  can  form  no  adequate  logical  notion  of  an  infinite 
object.  For  apprehension  may  be  considered  as  an  act  of  the  under- 
standing as  well  as  a  mere  act  of  the  phantasy.  We  can  conceive, 
we  can  think  about  much,  which  we  cannot  image.  We  can  medi- 
tate and  reason  about  such  things  as  law,  government,  duty,  relig- 
ion, while  yet  we  can  form  no  mental  picture  of  them.  The  grand 
question  in  this  discussion  is,  Can  we  form  an  intellectual  notion 
of  an  infinite  object,  say  of  an  infinite  God  ?  And  I  feel  con- 
strained to  admit  and  maintain  that  human  intelligence  can  form 
no  proper  or  adequate  conception  of  an  infinite  existence.  By  what 
process  can  it  be  supposed  to  construct  such  a  conception  ?  Cer- 
tainly not  by  abstraction,  for  abstraction  separates,  takes  away, 
diminishes.  It  is  just  as  certain  that  it  cannot  compass  this  end 
by  generalization,  for  generalization  merely  groups  objects  by  attri- 
butes known,  and  unless  we  have  infinity  first  in  the  individual, 
we  cannot  have  it  in  the  general.  Nor  can  we  reach  it  by  addition, 
multiplication,  composition  ;  these  will  give  the  enlarged,  but  not 
the  unlimited  :  a  distance  of  a  quintillion  of  quintillions  of  years, 
or  ages,  has  as  distinct  a  termination  as  an  ell  or  an  incli.  Nor 
can  the  understanding  attain  it  by  a  process  of  ratiocination,  for 
unless  tlie  infinite  were  in  the  premiss,  no  canon  of  reasoning 
would  justify  its  having  a  place  in  the  conclusion.  If  the  intelli- 
gence does  not  find  the  infinite  in  the  perception  with  which  it 
sets  out,  it  never  could  fashion  it  by  cutting  or  carving,  by  con- 
struction or  supraposition. 

So  much  may  be  allowed  to  those  British  philosophers  who  have 


1^8  PBBIITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

Lccii  at  pains  to  sliow  that  wc  can  form  no  conception  of  the  in- 
finite, or  that  the  notion  is  at  best  negative.^  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  am  i)roparcd  to  maintain  that  the  mind  has  some  positive 
apprehension  and  belief  in  regard  to  infinity  ;  otherwise,  why- 
do  meditative  minds  find  the  thought  so  often  pressing  itself  upon 
them  ?  why  has  it  such  a  place  in  our  faith  in  God  ?  why  is  it  ever 
coming  up  in  theology?  And  if  wc  have  an  idea  and  conviction, 
it  is  surely  possible  to  determine  what  they  are  by  a  careful  obser- 
vation of  what  passes  through  the  mind  when  it  would  muse  on 
the  eternal,  the  omnipresent,  the  perfect. 

II.  Two  Positive  Propositions  may  be  laid  down. 

(1.)  The  mind  aj^prehends  and  believes  that  iJtere  is,  and  must  be 
sometJiing  beyond  its  ividest  image  and  concept.  Let  us  follow  the 
mind  in  its  attempt  to  grasp  infinity.  I  have  allowed  that  we 
cannot  have  an  idea  of  infinite  space  and  time,  in  the  sense  of 
imaging,  picturing  or  representing  them.  Stretch  itself  as  it  may, 
the  imaging  power  of  the  mind  can  never  go  beyond  an  expansion, 
with  a  boundary,  commonly  a  globe  or  sphere  of  which  self  is  the 
centre,  and  duration  stretching  along  like  a  line,  but  with  a  begin- 
ning and  an  end.  In  respect  then  of  the  mental  picture  or  repre- 
sentation, the  apprehension  is  merely  of  the  very  large  or  the  very 
long,  but  still  of  the  finite,  of  what  might  be  called  the  indefinite, 
but  not  the  infinite.  But  any  account  of  our  conviction  as  to 
infinity  which  goes  no  further,  leaves  out  the  main,  the  peculiar 
element.      The  sailor  is  not  led  by  any  native  instinct  to  believe 

>  Hobbes,  following  out  his  theory  that  all  our  ideas  are  derived  from  sensation,  reaches 
the  conclusion  : — "  Whatever  we  imagine  is  finite.  There  is  therefore  no  idea  or  concep- 
tion which  can  arise  from  this  word  Infinite.  The  human  mind  cannot  comprehend  the 
idea  (image)  of  infinite  magnitude,  nor  conceive  infinite  swiftness,  infinite  force,  infinite 
time,  or  infinite  power.  When  we  say  that  anything  is  infinite,  we  only  mean  by  this 
that  we  are  not  able  to  conceive  the  bounds  or  limits  of  that  thing,  or  to  conceive  any 
other  thing  except  our  own  impotence.  Therefore  the  name  of  God  is  not  employed  that 
we  may  conceive  of  Him,  for  He  is  incomprehensible,  and  His  greatness  and  power  incon- 
ceivable, but  that  we  may  honour  Him"  {Leviathan,  iii).  "  When  we  say  that  anything  is 
infinite  we  do  not  intend  any  quality  in  the  thing  itself,  but  a  want  of  power  in  our  own 
minds ;  as  if  we  should  say  that  we  know  not  whether  it  has  limits  or  where.  Nor  can 
it  be  reverentlj'  said  of  God  that  we  have  an  idea  of  Him  in  our  minds ;  for  an  idea  is  our 
conception,  and  there  is  no  conception  of  anything  but  what  is  finite"  (/)e  Oive,  xv).  This 
doctrine  was  at  once  observed  to  have  an  atheistical  tendency,  and  John  Francis  Bud- 
daeus  remarks ;  "  What  Hobbes  affirms  is  therefore  most  false,  that  the  word  infinite 
only  signifies  that  we  cannot  conceive  the  limits  of  what  is  so  called.  For  he  erroneously 
passes  over  what  is  positive  in  the  idea  of  an  infinite  being,  and  allows  only  what  is 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE.  189 

that  the  ocean  has  no  bottom,  simply  because  in  letting  clown  the 
sounding-line  he  has  not  reached  the  ground.  When  the  astronomer 
has  gauged  space  as  far  as  his  telescope  can  penetrate,  he  finds  tliat 
there  are  still  stars  and  clusters  of  stars,  but  he  is  not  necessitated 
to  believe  that  there  must  be  star  after  star  on  and  for  ever.  The 
geologist  in  going  down  from  layer  to  layer  still  finds  signs  of  the 
existence  of  a  previous  earth,  but  he  is  not  obliged  to  conclude 
that  there  must  have  been  stratum  before  stratum  from  all  eternity. 
But  man  is  constrained  to  believe  that  whatever  be  the  point  of 
space  or  time  to  which  his  eye  or  his  thoughts  may  reach,  there 
must  be  a  space  and  time  beyond.  "Whence  this  belief  of  the  mind, 
on  space  and  time  being  presented  to  it?  Whence  this  necessity  of 
thouglit  or  belief?  This  is  the  very  phenomenon  to  be  accounted 
for ;  and  yet  the  Britisli  school  of  metaphysicians  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  have  contemplated  it  seriously  or  steadfastly,  with  the  view 
of  unfolding  the  depth  of  meaning  embraced  in  it.'  It  implies 
that  to  wliatever  point  of  space  or  time  we  might  go  in  our  persons 
or  in  our  fancy,  there  would  still  be  a  space  and  a  time  beyond.  I 
can  easily,  in  imagination,  go  out  as  far  as  the  rim  of  the  earth,  or 
as  the  moon,  or  as  the  sun,  or  as  the  nearest  star,  or  as  the  farthest 
star  seen  by  the  eye,  or  as  the  remotest  star  discovered  as  a  speck 
in  a  nebulous  cloud  of  light  by  the  telescope,  but  when  there,  I 
must  believe  that  space  still  goes  on,  and  that  if  I  were  carried  ten 
thousand  million  times  farther  there  would  still  be  space.  I  can 
represent  to  myself  the  instant  of  time  when  man  was  created,  and 
beyond  this  the  time  when  the  lion  or  the  worm,  or  the  palm  or 

negative;  and  the  positive  idea  he  explains  thus;  "For,  first  of  all,  we  conceive  a  certain 
supreme  idea  of  perfection ;  then  we  confess  that  this  perfection  is  so  great  that  we  cannot 
reach  its  bounds  or  limits"  {Theses  de  Atheismo  et  Super stitione,  v.,  quoted  in  Harrison's 
Notes  to  Cudvvorth's  Intellectual  Sj/stem,  Vol.  ii.  p.  593). 

'  Locke  was  prevented  by  the  defects  of  his  theory  and  his  antipathy  to  innate  ideas  from 
developing  all  that  is  in  our  conviction  of  infinity.  Yet,  while  he  maintains  that  our  idea 
of  the  infinite  is  negative,  he  admits  "  that  it  has  something  of  positive  in  all  those  things 
we  apply  to  it,  inasmuch  as  the  mind  comprehends  so  much  of  the  object"  (Essai/,  ii.  xvii. 
l.>).  He  even  admit.s,  though  rather  incidentally,  that  the  mind  has  a  necessary  conviction 
as  to  the  existence  of  an  infinite.  Thus,  speaking  of  space,  he  says  the  mind  "  must 
necessarily  conclude  it,  by  the  very  Nature  and  Idea  of  each  part  of  it,  to  be  actually  in- 
finite (1).  Again,  "I  think  it  unavoidable  for  every  considering  rational  creature  that 
will  but  examine  his  own,  or  any  other  existence,  to  have  the  notion  of  an  eternal  wise 
Ueing  who  had  no  beginning;  and  such  an  Idea  of  infinite  duration  I  am  sure  I  have"  (17). 
It  IS  to  be  regretted  that  Locke  never  unfolded  all  tliat  is  contained  in  these  "  necessary'" 
and  "unavoidable"  mental  processes. 


190  FRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  n. 

tlie  lichen,  were  created,  or  when  the  earth  or  the  angels  were 
created  ;  but  though  tliis  period  were  multiplied  by  itself  millions 
of  billions  of  trillions  of  times,  I  not  only  cannot  believe  that 
duration  did  then  begin,  I  am  constrained  to  believe  that  it  did  not 
and  could  not  then  commence.  This  intuitive  belief,  accompanied  as 
it  is  with  a  stringent  necessity  of  feeling,  is  the  very  peculiarity  of 
the  mind's  conviction  in  regard  to  infinity,  as  it  is  one  of  the  grandest 
characteristics  of  human  intelligence.  It  should  be  added  that  it  is  a 
power  which  ever  impresses  man  with  his  powerlessness. 

This  conviction  has  the  characters  and  can  bear  the  tests  of 
intuition.  It  is  self-evident.  Indeed,  if  it  did  not  shine  in  its 
own  light,  it  could  never  be  seen  in  any  other  which  we  might 
hold  up  to  it.  It  can  stand  the  test  of  necessity.  It  is  necessary, 
we  must  believe  it  when  our  intelligence  is  directed  towards  it. 
We  cannot  be  made  to  believe  otherwise,  or  that  there  is  a  limit  to 
immensity  and  duration.  It  is,  when  properly  understood,  uni- 
versal. The  image,  it  is  true,  of  space  or  time,  formed  by  the  boy  or 
savage,  may  be  very  contracted.  The  widest  space  of  which  he 
has  liad  any  experience  may  be  the  glorious  dome  spread  over  his 
head  in  the  sky,  and  his  imagination  may  be  able  to  go  very  little 
beyond  the  visible  heavens  or  the  distant  hills  which  bound  his 
view,  still  he  is  sure  that  beyond  there  must  be  something,  an 
"  outer  infinite,"  and  perhaps  he  will  be  eager  to  know  what  is 
beyond  his  horizon.  His  idea  of  time,  as  a  positive  picture,  may 
extend  no  further  than  the  date  of  the  oldest  story  which  his 
grandfather  has  told  him  ;  but  he  is  sure  that  at  that  point  dura- 
tion did  not  begin,  and  he  may  be  interested  to  know  what  hap- 
pened before. 

"  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy. 


Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Thougli  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither, 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore. 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 

I  suspect   that  is  rather  a  poetical   expression   of  what  passes 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE.  191 

through  the  mind  of  infants ;  but  it  is  true  and  correct  so  far  as 
it  indicates  that  there  is  an  imaginative  tendency  which  from  very 
early  life  goes  out  from  the  actual  to  the  ideal.  "  Let  them,"  says 
John  Howe  in  his  Living  Temple,  "  tlicreforc  reject  it  if  they  can. 
They  will  feel  it  reimposing  itself  upon  them  whether  they  will  or 
no  ;  and  sticking  as  close  to  their  minds  as  their  very  thinking 
power  itself."  But  this  is  not  all  that  is  comprised  in  the 
conviction. 

(2.)  We  aiipreliend  and  are  constrained  to  believe  in  regard  to  the 
objects  icliicli  ice  look  iipon  as  infinite  thcd  they  are  incapable  of 
augmentation.  Here,  as  in  every  apprehension  which  we  have  of 
infinity,  the  imaging  power  of  the  mind  fails  and  must  fail;  still 
we  have  an  image  and  an  intellectual  conception  ;  say,  an  image 
with  a  notion  of  extension,  or  duration,  or  Deity.  Or  we  represent 
to  ourselves  the  Divine  Being,  with  certain  attributes, — say,  as 
wise  or  as  good, — and  our  belief  as  to  Him  and  these  attributes 
is,  that  He  cannot  be  wiser  or  better.  This  aspect  may  be  appro- 
priately designated  as  the  Perfect.  This  is  the  conviction  of  the 
Perfect,  of  which  many  profound  philosophers  make  so  much,  but 
not  more,  as  I  think,  than  they  are  entitled  to  do  ;  though  they 
have  not,  as  it  appears  to  me,  always  given  the  correct  account  of 
the  nature  and  of  the  genesis  of  the  notion.^  We  think  of  God  as 
having  all  His  attributes  such  that  no  addition  could  be  made  to 
them  :  and  we  call  such  attributes  His  perfections.  In  regard,  in- 
deed, to  the  moral  attributes  of  Deity,  it  is  this  significant  word 
Perfect,  rather  than  infinite,  which  expresses  the  conviction  which 

1  In  musing  on  divine  things,  the  thought  occurred  to  Anselm  that  it  might  be  possible 
to  find  a  single  argument  which  would  of  itself  prove  that  there  is  a  God,  and  that  He  is 
the  Supreme  Good.  Man,  he  says,  is  able  to  form  a  conception  of  something  than  which 
nothing  greater  can  be  conceived ;  and  this  conception,  he  argues,  implies  the  existence 
of  a  corresponding  being  {Proshg'wn).  A  similar  argument  occurred  to  Descartes.  He 
found  in  himself  the  idea  of  a  Perfect  being ;  and  he  argues  that  in  this  idea  the  existence 
of  the  Being  is  comprised,  as  the  equality  of  the  three  angles  to  two  right  angles  is  com- 
prised in  the  idea  of  a  triangle  {Meth.  p.  4,  etc.)  Leibnitz  acknowledges  that  the  argu- 
ment is  valid;  provided  he  is  allowed  to  supply  a  missing  link,  and  to  show  that  it  is  pos- 
sible that  God  should  exist  {Op.  p.  273).  It  may  be  doubted  whether  these  arguments  for 
the  Divine  existence,  derived  from  the  mere  idea  of  the  Perfect,  are  valid,  independent  of 
external  facts.  Put  these  eminent  men  are  right  in  saying  that  the  mind  has  some  concep- 
tion and  conviction  as  to  the  perfect;  and  these  combine,  with  the  observation  of  traces  of 
design,  to  enable  us  to  construct  an  argument  for  the  Divine  existence.  In  our  da_y,  M. 
Cousin  maintains  that  the  mind  has  the  idea  of  the  perfect,  which  he  employs  in  his  theistic 
argument  {Ser.  ii.  t.  ii.) 


192  punrirrrE  beliefs.  [part  n. 

ire  are  led  to  entertain  in  regard,  for  example,  to  the  wisdom,  or 
l)enevolenee,  or  rigbteooaiess  of  God. 

This,  too,  seems  a  native  conviction  of  the  mind.  It  needs,  in- 
deed, a  certain  matter  provided  for  it.  and  to  ^rhich  i:  may  adhere^ 
In  a  positive  state  it  springs  up  late,  and  groTrs  slowly  in  all 
minds  to  which  it  is  not  externally  given  by  education,  ont  of  the 
Bible  or  otherwise.  StiU  it  is  there  in  the  mind  as  a  tendency, 
placing  before  every  man  some  sort  of  "  Idea"  in  the  Platonic  sense  ; 
a  model  or  lenu  {deal,  which  he  is  ever  prompted  to  strive  after, 
while  he  is  made  to  feel  that  he  has  not  reached  it.  It  is  this  im- 
pclse.  I  apprehend,  which  makes  even  the  Heathens  speak  of  their 
gods,  or  at  least  their  supreme  God.  as  ineffably  good  and  immortal ; 
— ^their  actual  conceptions  of  his  excellence  and  dnration  mar  be 
extremelv  inadequate,  still  they  wiH  not  allow  that  there  eonld  be 
fmy  increfise  made  to  his  attribiites :  ani,  iniJcr  fostering  circum- 
stances, the  conviction  will  come  out  in  a  more  decided  form. 
When  the  object  is  brought  nnder  onr  notice,  we  see  that  it  is  per- 
fect, that  it  mnst  be  perfect,  and  that  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  The 
faith  is  universal,  but  the  conception  takes  the  form  which  may  be 
given  it  by  the  education  or  the  intellectual  strength  and  growth 
of  the  individual. 

Bur  it  win  be  urged  that  these  two  views  or  sides  of  infinity  are 
inconsistent.  According  to  the  one.  infinity  is  something  to  which 
something  can  be  ever  added  :  whereas,  according  to  the  other,  it 
is  something  to  which  nothing  can  be  added.  But  in  this,  as  in 
every  other  case  of  apparent  or  alleged  contradiction  among  our 
original  perceptions,  the  inconsistency  vanishes  on  a  careful  in- 
spection of  the  precise  nature  of  the  convictions.  The  infinite  is 
somethinc:  beyond  our  image  or  notion  :  but  it  is  not  something 
beyond  the  infinite  itself.  It  is  something  which  admits  of  no  in- 
crease, bat  that  something  is  not  the  imperfect  notion  ve  form, 
and  which  we  know  to  be  imperfect.  Tlie  two  are  not  contradic- 
tory, but  the  one  is  supplementary  to  the  other.  They  cannot 
however  be  represented  as  the  complement  the  one  of  the  other ; 
for  while  tiiey  make  up  such  an  apprehension  as  the  finite  mind  of 
man  can  form,  they  do  not  make  up  the  infinite  itself,  which  is 
confessedlv  far  bevond.     The  first  of  these  views  tends  to  humble 


BOOK  n.]  THE  IXFIKITE.  193 

us,  as  showing  how  far  our  creature  impotency  is  below  Creator 
Power.  The  other  has  rather  a  tendency  to  derate  us,  by  show- 
ing a  perfect  exemplar,  which  is  indeed  far  above  us,  but  to  which 
we  may  ever  look  up.  The  Perfect  shines  above  us  like  the  sun 
in  the  heavens,  distant  and  unapproachable,  dazzling  and  blinding 
us  as  we  would  gaze  on  it,  but  still  our  eye  ever  tends  to  turn  up 
toward?  it,  and  we  feel  that  it  is  a  blessed  thing  that  there  is  sudi 
a  light,  and  that  we  are  permitted  to  walk  in  it  and  rejoice  in  it.^ 

TTT.  From  this  account  we  see  that  there  is  boih  an  idea  and  a 
belief  in  our  apprehension  of  the  infinite.  I  have  admitted  that 
the  image  and  the  notion  are  not  adequate.  Still  there  is  always 
an  idea.  Round  this,  as  a  body,  the  belief  gathers,  as  the  atmosphere 
does  round  the  earth.  First,  there  must  always  be  an  image  and 
a  notion  of  an  existing  thing,  say  space  or  time  ;  or,  as  far  more 
conceivable,  a  living  and  an  intelligent  God.  The  mind  labours  to 
heighten,  to  deepen,  to  widen,  this  idea  on  every  side.  It  is  after 
all  within  limits  ;  but  it  can  inqtiire  what  is  beyond.  It  can  do 
more  :  it  can  look  out  on  what  is  beyond.  It  can  do  yet  more  :  it 
knows  that  there  is  something  beyond,  and  perceives  somewhat  of 
it.  It  is  sure,  for  example,  that  as  far  as  it  has  gone  in  space,  there 
is  a  space  beyond  ;  far  as  it  has  gone  in  time,  there  is  a  time  be- 
yond ;  much  as  it  has  conceived  of  Grod,  there  is,  after  all,  more  of 
the  Divine  perfections.  There  is  thus  a  conception  of  an  object : 
there  is  thus,  too,  a  conception  of  this  same  object  being  beyond,  and 
stiU  further.  The  belief  attaches  to  this  conception,  and  declares  that 
this  thing  conceived,  this  thing  conceived  as  still  beyond,  is  a  reality, 
and  that  it  is  such  that  it  cannot  be  increased.  My  readers  must 
consult  their  own  consciousness  as  to  whether  the  account  now 
given  of  the  nature  and  genesis  of  our  conviction  is  the  correct  one. 

>  Aristotle  seixed  on  the  two  aspects  of  infinitr  in  Phyt.  Aii-t.  in.  6.  He  describes  the 
iofinite  as  that  which  has  always  something  beyond :  ov  jap  <ri-  /it^Sti-  c^u>,  oyu/.'  ffi  dt*  ri  i^ 
brri,  roi-ro  aTreipov  ecrtv.  But  then  the  complete,  the  enure,  is  that  which  has  nothing 
bejond :  ov  &£  fo^ir  e^u,  rm-r  tcri  rz/^wv  kcu  o/.OT'.  I  look  on  both  these  remarkiible  ex- 
pressions as  applicable,  the  one  to  onr  idea,  the  other  to  the  object.  Sir  W.  Hamilton  woald 
identify  the  o'/Mi-  with  the  German  "Absolute,"  but  Aristotle  gives  a  homelier  account  when  be 
describes  the  "  whole"  as  that  which  needs  nothing  beyond,  "  as  a  man  or  a  casket,"  It 
could  be  shown  that  theologians  in  labouring  to  de«.cribe  innniiy  hare  tmt  often  caught 
glimpses  of  one  or  other,  or  both  these  charact^istics,  and  have  fixed  them  with  more  or 
less  clearness  and  decision. 
13 


194  PBBIITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

This  notion,  with  its  adhering  belief,  is  a  mental  phenomenon 
which  we  have  a  word  to  express.  We  can  subject  it  to  logical 
processes  ;  it  comes  in,  like  all  our  perceptions,  in  the  concrete  :  it 
is  something,  sa}'  space,  time,  or  Deity,  we  apprehend  as  in- 
finite ;  but  we  can  abstract  the  infinite  from  the  object  regarded 
as  infinite,  and  form  the  abstract  idea  of  infinity.  We  can 
generalize  it,  and  use  it  as  a  predicate  ;  thus  we  can  talk  of  space 
and  time  and  God  as  being  infinite.  We  can  utter  judgments  re- 
garding it,  as  that  the  infinite  God  is  in  every  given  place  ;  there 
is  no  place  of  which  we  may  not  say,  "  Surely  the  Lord  is  in  this 
place."  We  can  even  reason  about  it ;  thus  we  can  infer  that  this 
puny  effort  of  man,  set  against  the  recorded  will  of  God,  shall  most 
certainly  be  frustrated  by  His  infinite  power.  Keeping  within  the 
limits  prescribed  by  the  nature  of  the  convictions,  man  can  speak 
about  the  infinite  and  be  intelligible,  he  can  legitimately  employ  it 
in  argument,  and  he  can  muse  upon  it,  and  find  it  to  be  among  the 
most  ennobling  and  precious  of  themes.' 

And  yet  it  is  true  all  the  while  that  the  notion  is  engulfed  in 
mystery.  It  is  of  all  things  the  most  preposterous  in  certain 
speculators  to  set  out  with  the  idea  of  the  infinite  without  a  pre- 

1  Sir  W.  Hamilton  says  our  notion  of  infinity  is  an  "  impotency,"  say  an  impotency  to 
conceive  that  space  and  time  should  have  bounds.  I  am  endeavouring  to  show  in  these 
paragraphs  that  there  is  more  than  this.  Hamilton  maintains  that  a  conception  of  the 
infinUe  is  impossible,  because  of  certain  laws  or  conditions  of  human  intelligence.  la 
particular,  Dr.  Mansel  maintains  that  it  is  one  condition  of  consciousness  that  we  dis- 
timruiah  between  one  object  and  another,  and  a  second  condition  that  we  perceive  the 
relation  between  subject  and  object,  both  of  which  imply  limitation  and  relation.  These 
laws  will  be  examined  {infra,  p.  20Ci,  foot-note).  Hamilton  admits  that  we  have  a  belief 
in  the  infinite  :  "  The  sphere  of  our  belief  is  much  more  extensive  than  the  sphere  of  our 
knowledge,  and  therefore  when  I  deny  that  the  infinite  can  by  us  be  known,  I  am  far  from 
denying  that  by  us  it  is,  must,  and  ought  to  be  believed.  This  I  have  indeed  anxiously 
evinced  both  by  reason  and  authority"  {Metaph.  Vol.  ii.  App.  p.  530).  But  if  this  faith 
be  beyond  consciousness,  his  view  is  liable  to  all  the  objections  which  he  urges  so  power- 
fuUv  acrainst  the  theory  of  Schelling,  "which  founds  philosophy  on  the  annihilation  of 
consciousness"  {Plscuss.  Art.  Philos.  of  Unconditioned).  On  the  other  hand,  if  this 
faith  be  within  consciousness,  as  he  evidently  supposes,  when  he  says  {Metaph.  Vol.  i. 
p.  191),  "  Knowledge  and  belief  are  both  contained  under  consciousness,"  then  the  objec- 
tions derived  from  the  conditions  of  consciousness,  which  he  urges  against  the  knowledge 
and  idea,  apply  equally  to  the  belief.  Besides,  must  not  a  belief  in  a  thing  of  which  we  have 
no  conception,  be  a  belief  in  Zero?  The  mind  is  shut  up,  it  is  supposed,  into  this  belief, 
by  the  principles  of  contradiction  and  excluded  middle,  which  requires  that  of  two  ex- 
tremes (the  absolute  and  infinite)  exclusive  of  each  other,  one  must  be  admitted  as  neces- 
sary. But  then  both  these  extremes,  i.  <>.,  the  absolute  and  infinite,  are  represented  as 
inconceivable,  and  I  rather  think  it  would  defy  Hamilton  or  any  other  man  to  tell  the 
contradictory  of  what  is  inconceivable.    Of  this  I  am  sure,  that  the  laws  of  contradiction 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE.  195 

vious  induction  of  its  nature,  and  thence  proceed,  consecutively  or 
deductively,  to  draw  out  a  body  of  philosophy  or  theology.  Such 
men  have  lost  themselves  in  attempting  to  voyage  an  "  unreal,  vast, 
unbounded  deep  of  horrible  confusion  ;"  and  yet  they  would  seek 
to  pilot  others,  only  to  conduct  them  into  darker  gloom  and  more 
inextricable  straits,  and,  in  the  end,  bottomless  abysses.  The  ac- 
count we  have  given  of  the  conception  and  belief,  shows  how  narrow 
the  limits  within  which  man  can  make  intelligible  assertions  ;  how 
strait  the  road  in  which  he  must  walk,  if  he  would  not  lose  himself 
in  wilderness  and  in  morass.  He  who  passes  these  bounds  is  talking 
without  a  meaning  ;  he  who  would  start  with  the  notion  of  the  abso- 
lute, and  thence  construct  a  system  embracing  God,  the  world,  and 
man,  will  without  fail  land  himself  in  helpless  and  hopeless  contra- 
dictions— the  necessary  consequent,  and  the  appropriate  punishment, 
of  his  folly  and  presumption. 

lY.  The  question  is  here  started,  What  is  it  that  we  are  to  regard 
as  infinite? 

And  here  it  is  of  importance  to  remind  the  reader  that  as  a 
native  law  or  regulative  law  in  the  mind,  our  intuition  as  to  the 


and  excluded  middle  derived  from  our  conceptions,  can  be  applied  only  to  what  we  conceive, 
and  can  have  no  meaning  as  referring  to  what  we  cannot  conceive.  He  maintains  that  our 
conceptions  as  to  the  infinite  laud  us  in  contradictions.  "  We  are  altogether  unable  to 
conceive  space  as  bounded,  as  finite ;  that  is,  as  a  w'nole  beyond  which  there  is  no  further 
space."  "  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  equally  powerless  to  realize  in  thought  the  possi- 
bility of  the  opposite  contradictory.  We  cannot  conceive  space  infinite  or  without  bound" 
{Mdaph.  Lect.  88).  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  the  criticism  I  have  offered  on  this  alleged 
contradiction  in  a  review  of  Hamilton,  in  iJublin  Univ.  Mag.,  Aug.  1859 :  "  The  seeming 
contradiction  here  arises  from  the  double  sense  in  which  the  word  '  conceive'  is  used.  la 
the  second  of  these  counter-propositions  the  word  is  used  in  the  sense  of  imaging,  or  repre- 
senting in  consciousness,  as  when  the  mind's  eye  pictures  a  fish  or  a  mermaid.  In  this 
signification  we  cannot  have  an  idea  or  notion  of  the  infinite.  But  the  thinking,  judging, 
believing  power  of  the  mind  is  not  the  same  as  the  imaging  power.  The  mind  can  think  of 
the  class  fish,  or  even  of  the  imaginary  class  mermaid,  while  it  cannot  picture  the  class. 
Now,  in  the  first  of  the  opposed  propositions,  the  word  '  conceive'  is  taken  in  the  sense  of 
thinking,  deciding,  being  convinced.  We  picture  space  as  bounded,  but  we  cannot  think, 
judge,  or  believe  it  to  be  bounded.  When  thus  explained,  all  appearance  of  contradiction 
disappears;  indeed,  all  contradictions  which  the  Kantians,  Hegelians,  and  Hamiltonians 
are  so  fond  of  discovering  between  our  intuitive  convictions  will  vanish,  if  we  but  carefully 
inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  convictions.  Both  propositions,  when  rightly  understood, 
are  true,  and  there  is  no  contradiction.  They  stand  thus:— 'We  cannot  image  space  a3 
without  bounds;'  'we  cannot  think  that  it  has  bounds,  or  believe  that  it  has  bounds.'  The 
former  may  perhaps  be  a  creature  impotency  ;  the  latter  is  most  assuredly  a  creature  po- 
tency,—is  one  of  the  most  elevated  and  elevating  convictions  of  which  the  mind  is  pos- 
seased,  and  is  a  conviction  of  which  it  can  never  be  shorn." 


19G  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  il 

infinite  is  a  tendency  or  aptitude  and  not  perception  or  knowledge 
(Part  I.  Book  ii.  sect.  2).  In  this  respect  it  is  like  our  other  inborn 
convictions.  Man  is  endowed  by  nature  with  senses,  but  the  senses 
do  not  perceive  till  an  object  is  presented.  On  falling  in  with  a 
phenomenon  we  look  for  a  cause,  but  (as  we  shall  see)  it  is  by  expe- 
rience, and  not  by  intuition  that  we  know  what  the  cause  is.  We  all 
have  a  conscience  which  prepares  us  for  discerning  between  good 
and  evil,  but  it  is  not  till  a  voluntary  action  is  presented  that  we 
pronounce  a  decision.  So  with  our  conviction  as  to  infinity  ;  the 
innate  law  is  a  tendency  to  look  out  beyond  the  actual,  and  to  seek 
for  the  perfect.  In  order  to  the  exercise  and  manifestation  of  the 
disposition  there  must  be  an  object  made  known  and  conceived,  and 
on  ^vhich  the  conviction  may  fasten.  What  the  object  is  must  be 
determined  by  an  inductive  observation  of  the  exercises. 

(1.)  We  look  on  infinity  as  an  attribute  of  an  object.  The 
infinite  is  not  to  bo  viewed  as  having  an  independent  being,  it  is 
not  to  be  regarded  as  a  substance  or  a  separate  entity  ;  it  is  simply 
the  quality  of  a  thing,  very  possibly  the  attribute  of  the  attribute 
of  an  object.  Thus  we  apply  the  phrase  to  the  Divine  Being  to 
denote  a  perfection  of  His  nature ;  we  apply  it  also  to  all  His  per- 
fections, such  as  His  wisdom  and  goodness,  which  we  describe  as 
infinite.  It  is  the  more  necessary  to  insist  on  this  view,  from  the 
circumstance  that  metaphysicians  are  very  much  tempted  to  give 
an  independent  being  to  abstractions ;  and,  in  particular,  some  of 
them  write  about  the  infinite  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  their 
readers  look  upon  it  as  a  separate  existence.  I  stand  up  for  the 
reality  of  infinity,  but  I  claim  for  it  a  reality  simply  as  an  attribute 
of  some  existing  object.'  Let  us  endeavour  to  ascertain  wdiat  the 
object  is. 

1  It  is  of  something,  say  of  space,  or  of  the  attribute  of  something,  say  of  the  power  of 
God,  that  wo- predicate  that  they  are  infinite.  This  certainly  implies  that  no  space  can 
be  added  to  infinite  space,  but  does  not  imply  that  space,  because  it  is  infinite,  must 
contain  all  existence,  must  comprise,  say  wisdom  and  goodness.  It  implies  that  God 
cannot  be  more  righteous  than  He  is,  but  does  not  involve  that  His  righteousness  or  even 
that  His  being  must  embrace  all  being.  Dr.  Mansel,  in  the  Limits  of  Eeligious  Thought, 
Sd  ed.  p.  4(3,  quotes  the  language  of  Hegel :  "  What  kind  of  an  Absolute  Being  is  that 
which  does  not  contain  in  itself  all  that  is  actual,  even  evil  included?"  and  refers  to 
Schelling,  Schleiermacher,  and  Parker,  as  holding  similar  views.  I  am  sure  that  the 
mind  is  not  shut  up  into  any  such  doctrine  by  its  native  convictions.  Against  such  a 
view  the  artillery  of  Hamilton  and  Mansel  tells  with  irresistible  power.  They  have  shown 
most  conclusively  that  such  a  notion  involves  inextricable  confusion  and  hopeless  contra- 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE  197 

(2.)  We  look  on  space  and  time  as  infinite,  and  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  infinite  being  or  substance.  We  cannot  be  made  to 
believe  tliat  at  any  given  point  space  should  cease,  or  that  at  any 
given  instant  time  should  have  begun,  or  should  come  to  an  end. 
But  let  us  consider  how  much  is  implied  in  this.  Place  and  time 
are  looked  upon  by  us  mainly  as  conditions  of  the  possibility  of 
the  existence  of  other  objects.  Wherever  there  is  space  there  may 
be  active  existence,  and  in  all  time  there  may  be  events  happening. 
The  infinity  of  space  and  time  thus  implies  the  possibility  of 
infinite  being  to  dwell  in  them.  There  is  ever  felt  to  be  an  empti- 
ness about  pure  space  and  time.  We  know,  not,  in  fact,  of  a  space 
or  time  without  a  substantial  existence  in  them.  I  do  indeed 
maintain,  on  the  ground  of  ineradicable  conviction,  that  we  must 
believe  them  to  be  independent  of  ourselves  contemplating  them, 
or  of  material  objects  placed  in  them.  But  the  mind  has  a  diffi- 
culty in  conceiving  of  them  as  altogether  separate  and  independent 
entities.  It  is  from  this  cause,  I  am  convinced,  that  so  many 
philosophers  represent  them  as  mere  relations  of  things  rather 
than  things,  or  as  forms  given  to  objects  by  the  mind,  or  as  mere 
conditions  of  existence.  These  are  very  incorrect  representations ; 
still  the  very  fact  that  they  have  been  advanced  is  an  evidence  of 
the  difficulty  which  the  mind  experiences  in  grasping  the  realities 
of  empty  space  and  time,  which  do  look  as  if  they  were  voids  to 
be  filled  up.     Independent  of  us,  they  scarcely  look  as  if  they  were 

dictions.  I  freely  abandon  sucb  a  conception  to  them,  to  tear  it  to  pieces  with  their 
remorseless  logic.  But  I  decidedly  demur  to  the  statement  of  Dr.  Mansel,  "  that  which 
is  conceived  as  absolute  and  infinite  must  be  conceived  as  containing  within  itself  the 
sum,  not  only  of  all  actual,  but  of  all  possible  modes  of  being."  I  have  nothing  here  to 
say  as  to  the  absolute,  but  I  do  afhrm  that  we  have  a  conception  as  to  the  infinite,  the 
perfect— I  do  not  say  of  the  infinite,  the  perfect — which  does  not  imply  this  consequence, 
and  that  we  can  both  think  and  speak  of  infinity  without  falling  into  contradictions. 
But  Dr.  Mansel  says  (p.  355)  that  my  view  (as  partially  expouiide.d  in  Apjiendix  to 
Method  of  Divine  Government)  differs  from  that  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton  rather  in  language 
than  in  substance,  and  that  it  is  not  opposed  to  any  principle  of  the  "  Philosophy  of  the 
Conditioned."  I  rejoice  to  believe  this,  as  I  would  rather  agree  with  Sir  W.  Hamilton 
and  Dr.  Jlansel  than  with  any  metaphysicians  of  the  past  of  present  age.  But  whether  I 
agree  with  them  or  not,  I  must  hold  it  to  be  quite  possible  to  muse  and  reason  about  the 
attribute  "  infinite,"  as  it  is  in  fact  conceived  and  believed  in  by  the  mind,  without  falling 
into  the  difficulties  in  which  the  German  supporters  of  the  absolute  have  involved  them- 
belves,  and  thai  we  can  think  of  God  and  write  about  God  as  i(fcuite,  without  being 
compelled  by  any  logical  necessity  to  look  upon  Him  as  embracing  all  existence,  or  to 
reckon  it  impossible  or  inconceivable  that  He  should  create  a  world  and  living  agents 
different  from  Himself.     We  cannot  conceive  that  God's  power  should  be  increased,  but 


198  PEIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [paet  ir. 

independent  of  a  substantial  existence.  I  am  not  prepared  to 
affirm  with  S.  Clarke,  that  they  are  modes  of  substance,  but  I  have 
little  to  say  against  another  statement  of  tlie  same  author,  that 
"  tliey  are  immediate  and  necessary  consequences  of  the  existence 
of  God,  and  tliat  witliout  them  His  Eternity  and  Ubiquity  would 
be  taken  away  ;"  or  the  statement  of  Newton,  tliat  "  God  constitutes 
time  and  space."  The  mind  feels  as  if  there  were  something 
wanting,  till  it  learns  of  One  to  occupy  the  vacuum  ;  but  it  is  met 
and  gratified  in  every  one  of  its  intellectual  and  moral  intuitions 
■  when  it  is  brouglit  to  know  Him  who  inhabiteth  eternity  and 
immensity,  and  filleth  them  with  living  and  life-giving  fullness. 

(3.)  Our  intuition  is  satisfied  only  by  the  contemplation  of  an 
infinite  God.  I  am  not  convinced  that  our  intuitive  convictions  as 
to  infinity,  of  themselves,  and  apart  from  auxiliary  considerations, 
guarantee  the  existence  of  infinite  substance.  I  am  sure  they  give 
no  sanction  to  the  doctrine  held  by  so  many  of  the  ancient  Greek 
philosophers,  that  material  substance  is  eternal ;  we  can  easily 
conceive  and  believe  matter  to  have  been  brought  into  existence 
at  some  point  in  time  by  a  power  adequate  to  produce  it.  It  does 
not  appear  to  me  that  we  are  constrained  by  our  convictions  on 
this  special  subject,  taken  apart  from  all  other  evidence,  to  believe 
in  the  existence  of  an  eternal  or  omnipresent  God.  Herein  I  have 
always  thought  that  the  argument  a  priori  or  intuitive  in  behalf 
of  the  Divine  existence  fails.     There  is  a  link  wanting  which  shows 

we  can  conceive  it  exercised  in  creating  beings  possessed  of  power.  We  cannot  conceive 
His  goodness  to  be  enlarged,  but  we  can,  witliout  a  contradiction,  conceive  Ilim  creating 
other  beings  also  good.  Nor  are  we  by  this  conception  shut  up  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
creature-power  or  creature-excellence  might  be  added  to  the  Divine  power  and  goodness, 
and  thus  make  it  greater.  To  all  quibbles  proceeding  in  this  line,  I  say  that  for  aught  I 
know  it  may  not  be  possible  tijey  should  be  added,  or  that,  if  added,  they  should  increase 
the  Divine  perfections ;  and  no  reply  could  be  given,  drawn  either  from  intuition  or  experi- 
ence, the  only  lights  to  which  I  can  allow  an  appeal.  Nor  will  I  venture  to  affirm  how 
much  truth  there  is  in  the  following  statement  of  Howe,  Living  Teniple,  Part  i.  Chap.  iv. ; 
"  This  necessarily  is  such  to  which  nothing  can  be  added,  so  as  that  it  should  be  really 
greater  or  better  or  more  perfect  than  it  was  before."  But  then  it  is  said,  could  you  not 
add  the  finite,  and  "is  there,  therefore,  nothing  more  of  existent  being  than  there  was 
before  this  production?"  It  is  answered,  "Nothing  more  than  virtualb'  was  before;  for 
when  we  suppose  an  infinite  being,  and  afterwards  a  finite,  this  finite  is  not  to  be  looked 
upon  as  emerging  or  springing  up  of  itself  out  of  nothing ;  or  proceeding  from  some  third 
thing  as  its  cause,  bfft  as  produced  by  that  infinite,  or  springing  out  of  that  which  it 
could  not  do  but  as  being  before  virtually  contained  in  it.  For  the  infinite  produces 
nothing  which  it  could  not  produce,  and  what  it  could  produce  was  beforehand  contained 
in  it  as  in  the  power  of  its  cause  " 


BOOK  II.  1  THE  INFINITE.  199 

that  the  proof  is  not   apoclictic   or   demonstrative,  that   it  is   not 

founded  on   truths   which   are    self-evident    throughout,   as   is,   for 

example,  the  proposition   that   the   opposite   angles    made   by   the 

intersection  of  two  straight  lines   are   equal.     We   have   and   can 

have  no  such  demonstrative  evidence  of  other  truths  to  which  the 

mind  cleaves  most  resolutely ;  as,  for  example,  that  we  ever  had  a 

sister,  or  brother,  or  friend,  or  that  we  ever  sat  under  the  shelter 

of  a.  father's  wisdom,  or  were  refreshed  by  the  dews  of  a  mother's 

tenderness.     There  is  need  of  other  considerations,  and  particularly 

of  an  experiential  element,  in  the  form  of  certain  obvious  facts,  to 

prove  the  existence  of  a  being  dwelling  in  infinite  time  and  space, 

and  possessed  of  infinite  power  and  goodness.     I  may  have  occasion 

to   show  that   when   the   patent  facts   and  native   convictions   are 

brought  together,  the  certainty  is  of  the  very  highest  order  short 

of  demonstration,  which  it  falls  beneath  only  so  far  as  not  absolutely 

to  preclude  the  possibility  of  doubt  when  the  fool  is  determined  to 

say  in  his  heart  "  There  is  no  God."     It  would  be  premature  to  bring 

forward   in  detailed  array  these   combined   considerations   at   this 

stage  of  our  inquiries,  and  to  show  how  the  order  and  adaptation 

in  nature  are  evidence  of  a  designing  and  planning  mind  ;  how  the 

evident  efiects  in   nature   evoke   the   intuition  which  demands  that 

there  be  a  cause  ;    how  our  convictions  of  moral  obligation  imply 

a  law,  the  embodiment  of  the  nature  of  a  lawgiver  ;    and  how  all 

these  unite  to  establish  the  existence  of  a  living  being,  intelligent 

and  holy.     When  this  being  is  made  known  to  us  by  these,  or  bv 

other  means,   our   conviction    as   to    infinity  fastens   on  it   as    its 

appropriate  object,  and  we  believe  that  He  who  made  all  things, 

and  who  is  thus  powerful,  thus  benevolent,  thus  holy,  is,  and  must 

be,  the  Infinite,  the  Perfect.' 

»  I  fear  this  account  will  scarcely-  satisfy  Mr.  Calderwood,  who  has  criticised  my  views 
in  his  able  work,  the  Philosophy  of  the  Infinite,  2d  ed.  Chap.  iii.  I  think,  however,  that  he 
cannot  charge  me  with  here  maintaining  an  opinion  inconsistent  with  my  general  doctrine 
that  the  intuitions  of  the  mind  are  primarily  directed  to  individual  objects,  for  I  have 
represented  our  intuition  as  to  infinity  as  being  in  the  mind  a  law  or  tendency,  but  when 
exercised  looking  to  an  object.  Mr.  C.  holds  that  we  have  a  necessary  and  immediate 
knowledge  of  an  infinite  God.  But  then  he  allows  that  men  may  deny  the  existence 
of  God  (p.  54),  and  that  "  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  one  infinite  God  rises  into 
consciousness  when  experience  and  reflection  are  such  as  to  require  its  application,"  and 
again,  that  "  the  materials  of  observation  or  reflection  are  needful  to  call  them  (our  native 
convictions)  before  us  for  recognition"  (pp.  40,  41).  Surely  there  is  a  point  here  at  which 
we  all  but  meet.     I  believe  in  a  native  and  necessary  conviction  ;  but  in  thorough  analof'V 


200  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

The  nature  of  man's  conviction  in  regard  to  infinity,  is  fitted  to 
impress  iis,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  with  the  strength  and  the 
weakness  of  human  intelligence,  which  is  powerful  in  that  it  can 
apprehend  so  much,  but  feeble  in  that  it  can  apprehend  no  more. 
The  idea  entertained  is  felt  to  be  inadequate,  but  this  is  one  of  its 
excellencies,  that  it  is  felt  to  be  inadequate ;  for  it  would  indeed 
be  lamentably  deficient  if  it  did  not  acknowledge  of  itself  that  it 
falls  infinitely  beneath  the  magnitude  of  the  object.  The  mind  is 
led  by  an  inward  tendency  to  stretch  its  ideas  wider  and  wider, 
but  is  made  to  know  at  the  most  extreme  point  which  it  has  reached 
that  there  is  something  further  on.  It  is  thus  impelled  to  be  ever 
striving  after  something  which  it  has  not  yet  reached,  and  to  look 
beyond  the  limits  of  time  into  eternity  beyond,  in  which  there  is 
the  prospect  of  a  noble  occupation  in  beholding,  through  ages  which 
can  come  to  no  end,  and  a  space  which  has  no  bounds,  the  mani- 
festations of  a  might  and  an  excellence  of  which  we  can  never 
know  all,  but  of  which  we  may  ever  know  more.  It  is  an  idea 
which  would  ever  allure  us  up  towards  a  God  of  infinite  perfection, 
and  yet  make  us  feel  more  and  more  impressively  the  higher  we 
ascend,  that  we  are,  after  all,  infinitely  beneath  Him.  Man's  capa- 
city to  form  such  an  idea  is  a  proof  that  he  was  formed  by  an 
infinite  God,  and  in  the  image  of  an  infinite  God  ;  his  incapacity, 
in  spite  of  all  his  efforts  to  form  a  higher  idea,  is  fitted  to  show  us 
how  wide  the  space  and  how  impassable  the  gulf  which  separates 
man  as  finite  from  God  the  infinite. 

They  are  in  error  who  conclude  that  they  cannot  know  an  In- 
Qnite  God,  but  they  are  equally  in  error  who  suppose  that  they 
can  reach  a  perfect  knowledge  of  Him.  There  is  a  sense  in  which 
He  may  be  described  as  the  unknown  God,  for  no  human  intellect 
can  come  to  know  all  the  attributes  of  God,  or  even  know  all  about 
any  one  of  His  perfections  ;  but  there  is  a  sense  in  which  He  is 
emphatically  the  known  God,  inasmuch  as  He  has  been  pleased  to 
manifest  and  reveal  Himself,  and  every  human  being  is  required  to 

ivith  the  operation  of  all  our  other  intuitious,  I  hoid  that  the  object  is  presented  to  the 
mind  by  other  intuitious  or  by  observation,  aud  I  have  endeavoured  to  use  Mr.  Calder- 
wood's  words,  to  unfold  the  materials  of  observation  and  reflection  which  call  out  the 
conviction.  As  a  necessary  conviction,  our  intuitive  belief  cannot  be  spontaneously 
uenjed,  but  it  can  be  doubted  or  denied,  because  of  these  "  materials  of  observation." 


BOOK  II.]  THE  INFINITE.  201 

attain  a  clear  and  positive,  though  at  the  same  time  a  necessarily 
inadequate  knowledge  of  Him.  It  is  true,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
the  invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  from  the  things  which  are  made, 
even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead  ;  but  it  is  equally  true,  on 
the  other,  that  we  cannot  by  searching  find  out  God,  that  we  can- 
not find  out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection.  The  wide  finite,  with 
its  horizon  ever  widening  as  we  ascend,  should  call  forth  our  admira- 
tion, our  adoration,  and  our  love  ;  the  wider  infinite,  which  is  round 
about,  and  into  which  we  can  only  gaze  as  we  often  gaze  into  the 
deep  sky,  should  impress  us  with  a  feeling  of  awe  in  reference  to 
Him  who  fills  it  all,  and  a  feeling  of  humility  in  reference  to  our- 
selves who  can  know  so  little. 

He  who  dwells  in  infinity  is  at  once  a  God  who  reveals  and  a 
God  who  conceals  Himself.  We  can  know,  but  we  can  know  only 
in  part.  The  knowledge  which  we  can  attain  is  the  clearest,  and 
yet  the  obscurest  of  all  our  knowledge.  A  child,  a  savage,  can 
acquire  a  certain  acquaintance  with  Him,  while  neither  sage  nor 
angel  can  rise  to  a  full  comprehension  of  Him.  God  may  be  truly 
described  as  the  Being  of  whom  we  know  the  most,  inasmuch  as 
His  works  are  ever  pressing  themselves  upon  our  attention,  and  we 
behold  more  of  His  ways  than  of  the  ways  of  any  other  ;  and  yet 
He  is  the  Being  of  whom  we  know  the  least,  inasmuch  as  we  know 
comparatively  less  of  His  whole  nature  than  we  do  of  ourselves,  or 
of  our  fellow-men,  or  of  any  object  falling  under  our  senses.  They 
who  know  the  least  of  Him  have  in  this  the  most  valuable  of  all 
knowledge  ;  they  who  know  the  most,  know  but  little  after  all  of 
His  glorious  perfections.  Let  us  prize  what  knowledge  we  have, 
but  feel  meanwhile  that  our  knowledge  is  comparative  ignorance. 
They  who  know  little  of  Him  may  feel  as  if  tliey  know  much  ; 
they  who  know  much  will  always  feel  that  they  know  little.  The 
most  limited  knowledge  of  Him  should  be  felt  to  bo  precious,  but 
this  mainly  as  an  encouragement  to  seek  knowledge  higher  and 
yet  higher,  without  limit  and  without  end.  They  who  in  earth  or 
heaven  know  the  most,  know  that  they  know  little  after  all ;  but 
they  know  that  they  may  know  more  and  more  of  Him  tliroughout 
eternal  ages. 


202  PBIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  EXTENT,   TESTS,  AND  POWER   OF  OUR  NATIVE 

BELIEFS. 

The  above  are  some  of  the  principal — I  will  not  venture  to  say 
that  they  are  the  whole — of  our  native  beliefs.  As  they  grow 
upon  our  native  cognitions,  so  they  attach  themselves  to  our  primi- 
tive judgments,  in  most  of  which  there  is  more  or  less  of  the  faith- 
clement,  that  is,  belief  in  the  existence  of  an  object  not  directly 
known.  There  is  belief,  for  instance-,  involved  in  the  judgment 
that  this  effect  has  a  cause,  which  cause  may  be  unknown.  There 
is  belief,  too,  exercised  in  certain  of  our  moral  judgments,  as  when 
we  believe  in  the  integrity  of  a  good  man,  or  trust  in  the  word  of 
God,  even  when  His  providence  seems  in  opposition.  But  these 
are  topics  which  fall  to  be  discussed  specially  in  subsequent 
books. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  that  faith  is  an  affection  of 
mind,  not  limited  to  our  primary  convictions.  Faith  collects  round 
our  observational  knowledge,  and  even  around  the  conclusions 
reached  by  inference.  We  believe — the  course  of  nature  being 
unchanged  by  its  Author — that  the  seed  cast  into  the  ground  in 
spring  will  yield  a  return  in  autumn,  that  the  sun  will  rise  to- 
morrow as  he  has  done  to-day,  and  that  the  planet  Saturn  a  year 
hence  will  be  found  in  the  very  place  calculated  for  us  by  the 
astronomer.  We  exercise  faith,  every  one  of  us,  in  listening  to  the 
testimony  of  credible  witnesses,  and  faith  is  in  one  of  its  liveliest 
forms  when  it  becomes  trust  in  the  ability,  the  excellence,  and  the 
love  of  a  fellow-creature.  Oar  highest  faiths  are  those  in  which 
there  is  a  mixture  of  the   observational  and  intuitional  elements, 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR  EXTENT  AND  TESTS.  203 

the  observational  supplying  the  object,  and  the  intuitional  impart 
ing  to  them  a  profundity  and  a  power  as  resting  on  an  immovable 
foundation  and  going  out  into  the  vast  and  unbounded.      In  par- 
ticular, when  God  has  been  revealed,  faith  ever  clusters  round  Him 
as  its  appropriate  object. 

There  are  canons  whereby  to  try  the  trustworthiness  of  our 
beliefs.  First,  so  far  as  our  intuitive  beliefs  are  concerned,  tliere 
are  the  general  tests  of  intuition.  Take  our  belief  in  the  infinite. 
TVe  have  to  ask,  Is  the  truth  believed  in  self-evident,  or  does  it  lean 
on  something  else?  Is  it  necessary?  Can  we  believe  that  space 
and  time  aixl  the  Being  dwelling  in  them  have  limits  ?  Is  it  uni- 
versal, that  is,  do  men  ever  practically  believe  that  they  can  come 
to  the  verge  of  time  and  space  ?  Such  queries  as  these  will  settle 
for  us  at  once  what  beliefs  are  original  and  fundamental.  We 
should  put  these  questions  to  every  belief  that  may  suggest  itself 
to  our  own  minds.  We  are  entitled  to  put  them  to  every  faith 
which  may  be  pressed  on  us  by  otliers.  Then,  secondly,  as  to  our 
derivative  or  observational  beliefs,  there  are  the  ordinary  rules  of 
evidence,  as  enunciated  in  works  of  special  or  applied  logic,  or  as 
stated  in  books  on  the  particular  departments  of  knowledge,  or, 
more  frequently,  as  caught  up  by  common  experience,  and  incor- 
porated into  the  good  sense  of  mankind.  In  no  such  case  are  we 
to  believe  without  proof  being  supplied,  and  we  are  entitled  and 
required  to  examine  the  evidence.  Thirdly,  as  to  mixed  cases  in 
which  our  faith  proceeds  partly  on  intuition,  and  partly  on  observa- 
tion, our  business  is  carefully  to  separate  the  two,  and  to  judge 
each  by  its  appropriate  tests.  In  the  use  of  such  rules  as  these, 
while  led  to  yield  to  the  faith  sanctioned  by  our  rational  nature, 
we  shall  at  the  same  time  be  saved  from  those  extravagant  credences 
which  are  recommended  to  us  by  unauthorized  authority,  by  mysti- 
cism whicli  has  confused  itself,  by  superstition,  by  bigotry,  by  fanati- 
cism, by  pride,  or  by  passion. 

Looked  at  under  one  aspect,  belief  might  be  considered  as  so  far 
a  weakness  cleaving  to  man,  for  where  he  has  faith,  other  and 
higher  beings  may  have  immediate  knowledge.  But  when  contem- 
plated under  other  aspects,  it  is  an  clement  of  vast  strength.  In 
heaven,  much  of  what  faith  is  here,  will  be  brightened  into  sight, 


204  PBIMITIVE  BELIEFS.  [part  ii. 

but  even  in  heaven  faith  abideth.  Our  faitlis  widen  indefinitely  the 
sphere  of  our  convictions,  they  surround  our  solid  cognitions  with  an 
atmosphere  in  which  it  is  bracing  and  exhilarating  to  walk,  which 
no  doubt  has  its  mists  and  clouds,  but  has  also  a  kindling  and  irradi- 
ating capacity,  and  may  be  warmed  into  the  fervour,  and  reflect  the 
very  light  of  heaven  in  a  thousand  varied  colours.  He  who  would 
tear  off  from  the  mind  its  proper  beliefs,  would  in  the  very  act  be 
shearing  it  of  one  of  its  principal  glories. 

What  a  power  even  in  our  earthly  faiths,  as  when  men  sow  in 
tlie  assurance  that  they  shall  reap  after  a  long  season,  and  labour  in 
the  confideuce  of  a  reward  at  a  far  distance !  What  an  efficacy  in 
the  trust  which  the  child  reposes  in  the  parent,  which  the  scholar 
])uts  in  his  master,  which  the  soldier  places  in  his  general,  and 
which  the  lover  commits  to  the  person  beloved !  These  are  among 
the  chief  potencies  which  have  been  moving  mankind  to  good,  or, 
alas!  to  evil.  As  it  walks  steadfastly  on  it  discovers  an  outlet 
where  sense  thought  that  the  way  was  shut  in  and  closed.  Diffi- 
culties give  way  as  it  advances,  and  impossibilities  to  prudence 
speedily  become  accomplishments  before  the  might  and  energy  of 
faith.  To  it  we  owe  the  greatest  achievements  which  mankind 
have  effected  in  art,  in  travel,  in  conquest ;  setting  out  in  search 
of  the  unseen,  they  have  made  it  seen  and  palpable.  It  was  thus 
that  Columbus  persevered  till  the  long  hoped-for  country  burst  on 
his  view, — it  is  always  thus  that  men  discover  new  lands  and  new 
worlds  outside  those  previously  known. 

But  faith  has  ever  a  tendency  to  go  out  with  strong  pinions  into 
infinity,  which  it  feels  to  be  its  proper  element.  It  has  a  telescopic 
power,  whereby  it  looks  on  vast  and  remote  objects,  and  beholds 
them  as  near  and  at  hand.  There  is  a  constancy  in  its  course  and 
a  steadiness  in  its  progress,  because  its  eye  is  fixed  on  a  pole-star 
far  above  our  earth.  How  lofty  its  mien  as  it  moves  on,  looking 
upward  and  onward,  and  not  downward  and  backward,  with  an 
eye  kindled  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  object  at  which  it  looks! 
Hence  its  power,  a  power  drawn  from  the  attraction  of  the  world 
above.  No  element  in  all  nature  so  potent.  The  lightning  cannot 
move  with  the  same  velocity ;  light  does  not  travel  so  quick  from 
the  sun  to  the  earth,  as  faith  does  from  earth  to  heaven.    It  heaves 


BOOK  II.]  THEIR  POWER.  205 

up,  as  by  an  irresistible  hydrostatic  pressure,  the  load  which  would 
press  on  the  bosom.  It  glows  like  the  heat,  it  burns  like  the  fire, 
and  obstacles  are  consumed  before  its  devouring  progress.  Perse- 
cution coming  like  the  wind  to  extinguish  it,  only  fans  it  into  a 
brighter  flame. 

The  proper  object  of  faith  is,  after  all,  the  Divine  Being.  Time 
and  spane  and  infinity  seem  empty  and  dead  and  cold,  till  faith 
fills  them  with  the  Divine  presence,  quickens  them  with  the  Divine 
life,  and  warms  tliein  with  the  Divine  love.  When  thus  grounded, 
how  stable  !  firmer  than  sense  can  ever  be,  for  the  objects  at  which 
it  looks  are  more  abiding.  "  The  things  which  are  seen  are 
temporal,  but  the  things  which  are  unseen  are  eternal."  When 
thus  fixed,  the  soul  is  at  rest,  as  secure  in  Him  to  whom  it  adheres. 
When  thus  directed,  all  its  acts,  even  the  meanest,  become  noblci 
being  sanctified  by  the  Divine  end  which  they  contemplate.  All 
doubts  are  now  decided  on  the  right  side  by  eternity  being  cast 
into  the  scale.  When  thus  associated,  its  might  is  irresistible.  It 
carries  with  it,  and  this  according  to  the  measure  of  it,  the  power 
of  God.  It  is,  no  doubt,  weak  in  that  it  leans,  but  it  is  strong  in 
that  it  leans  on  the  arm  of  the  Omnipotent.  It  is  a  creature 
irapotency  which  makes  us  lay  hold  of  the  Creator's  power. 


BOOK  III. 

PKIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THEIR     GENERAL    NATURE,    AND   A     CLASSIFICATION 

OF  THEM. 

The  mind  of  man  has  a  set  of  Simple  Cognitive — called  by  Sir 
William  Hamilton  Presentative — Powers,  such  as  Sense-Perception 
and  Self-Consciousness,  by  which  it  knows  objects  before  it. 
From  these  we  obtain  our  Primitive  Cognitions.  It  has  also  a  set 
of  Reproductive  Powers,  such  as  the  Memory  and  the  Imagination, 
by  which  it  recalls  the  past  in  old  forms  or  in  new  dispositions. 
Out  of  them  arise  many  of  our  Faiths,  as  in  the  existence  of  objects, 
which  have  fallen  under  our  notice  in  time  past,  and  in  an  infinity 
surpassing  our  utmost  powers  of  imagination.  But  the  mind  has 
also  a  Power  of  Comparison  by  which  it  perceives  Relations  and 
forms  Judgments. 

Our  Primitive  Judgments  are  formed  from  our  Primitive 
Cognitions  and  Primitive  Beliefs.  On  comparing  two  or  more 
objects  known  or  believed  in,^  we  discover  that  they  bear  a 
necessary  relation   to  each  other.      The  necessity  of  the  relation 

1  A  judgment  is  usually  definded  as  a  comparison  of  two  notions.  Upon  which  Mr.  J. 
S.  Mill  remarks,  that  "  propositions  (except  where  the  mind  itself  is  the  subject  treated 
of)  are  not  assertions  respecting  our  ideas  of  things,  but  assertions  respecting  things 
themselves,"  adding,  "  My  belief  has  not  reference  to  the  ideas,  it  has  reference  to  the 
things"  {Logic,  i.  v.  1).  There  is  foice  in  the  criticism,  yet  it  does  not  give  the  exact 
truth.  In  propositions  about  extra-mental  objects,  we  are  not  comparing  the  two  notions 
as  states  of  mind  ;  so  far  as  logicians  have  proceeded  on  this  view,  they  have  fallen  into 
confusion  and  error.  But  still,  while  it  is  true  that  our  predications  are  made,  not  in 
regard  to  our  notions,  but  of  things,  it  is  in  regard  to  things  apprehended,  or  of  which 
we  have  a  notion,  as  Mr.  Mill  admits  :  "  In  order  to  believe  that  gold  is  yellow,  I  must 
indeed  have  the  idea  of  gold  and  the  idea  of  yellow,  and  something  having  reference  to 
those  ideas  must  take  place  in  my  mind." 
(206) 


BOOK  III.]  THEIR  GENEBAL  NATURE.  207 

arises  from  the  nature  of  the  things.  We  discover  that  objects 
have  a  certain  relation  because  of  their  nature  as  it  has  become 
known  to  us,  or  as  we  have  been  led  to  believe  it  to  be  ;  and 
whenever  we  are  led  to  discover  a  necessary  relation,  it  is  because 
we  have  such  an  acquaintance  with  things  as  to  observe  that  there 
is  a  relation  implied  in  their  very  nature.  It  should  be  added,  that 
because  of  our  limited  and  imperfect  knowledge,  there  may  be  many 
necessary  relations  which  are  altogether  unknown  to  us,  even  among 
objects  which  are  so  far  known. 

In  accepting  this  account,  we  are  saved  from  the  extravagant 
positions  taken  up  by  many  metaphysicians  as  to  the  a  priori 
judgments  of  the  mind,  which  they  represent  as  fashioned  by  a 
power  of  reason  independent  of  things,  whereas  they  are  formed  on 
the  contemplation  of  things,  and  of  the  nature  of  things,  so  far  as 
apprehended.  Such  questions  as  the  following  are  often  put  by 
ingenious  minds : — How  is  it  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose 
a  space  ?  How  is  it  that  time  appears  like  a  line  stretching  behind 
and  before,  whereas  the  analogous  thing,  space,  extends  in  three 
dimensions?  The  proper  reply  is,  that  all  this  follows  from  the 
very  nature  of  space  and  time.  And  if  the  question  be  put,  How 
do  we  know  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space,  and 
that  time  has  length  without  breadth?  the  answer  is,  that  all  this 
is  involved  in  our  primary  knowledge  of  space  and  time.  No  other 
answer  can  be  given ;  no  other  answer  should  be  attempted.  Our 
primitive  judgments  proceed  on  our  primitive  cognitions  and  beliefs, 
which  again  are  founded  on  the  nature  of  things,  as  we  are  con- 
stituted to  discover  it. 

It  will  be  necessary  at  this  place  to  examine  a  very  common 
•representation  that  the  mind  begins  with  judgments,  rather  than 
the  knowledge  of  individual  things,  and  that  there  is  judgment  or 
comparison  in  all  knowledge.  According  to  Locke,  knowledge  is 
nothing  but  the  perception  of  the  connexion  and  agreement,  or 
disagreement  and  repugnancy,  of  any  two  ideas.  Sir  W.  Hamilton 
and  Dr.  Manscl  maintain  that  in  every  cognitive  act  there  is  judg- 
ment or  comparison.  In  opposition  to  Locke,  I  hold  that  the 
mind  does  not  commence  with  ideas  and  the  comparison  of  ideas, 
but  with  tlie  knowledge  of  things,  of  which  it  can  ever  after  form 


208  PBIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

idea?,  and  wliicli  it  is  able  to  compare.  I  reckon  it  impossible  for 
the  mind,  from  mere  ideas  not  comprising  knowledge,  or  from  the 
comparison  of  such  ideas,  ever  to  rise  to  knowledge,  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  things.  Tlie  system  of  Locke  is  at  this  point  involved  in 
difficulties  from  which  it  cannot  be  delivered  by  those  who  hold, 
as  he  did,  lliat  man  can  reach  a  knowledge  of  objects.  The  only 
consistent  issue  of  such  a  doctrine  is  an  idealism  which  maintain? 
that  the  mind  can  never  get  beyond  its  own  circle  or  globe,  and  is 
there  engaged  for  ever  in  the  contemplation  and  comparison  of  its 
own  ideas,  in  regard  to  which  it  never  can  be  certain  whether  they 
have  any  external  reality  corresponding  to  them.  The  doctrine  of 
Hamilton  and  Mansel  is  not  sto  objectionable,  as  tlicy  allow  that 
we  compare  objects.  Still  it  is  an  unsatisfactory  statement  to 
make  all  our  knowledge  to  be  not  of  things,  but  of  tlic  comparison 
or  the  relations  of  things.  If  I  interpret  my  co;i.sciousness  aright, 
we  first  know  things,  and  then  are  able  to  compare  them  because 
of  our  knowledge  of  tlieir  qualities.  Any  other  doctrine  makes 
our  knowledge  indirect  and  remote, — we  know  not  tlie  object,  but 
merely  a  relation  of  it  to  some  other  object,  of  which  object  our 
knowledge  must  also  be  relative,  that  is,  in  relation  to  something 
else.  I  acknowledge  that  every  intuitive  cognition  may  furnish 
the  matter,  and  supply  the  ground  for  a  judgment.  Thus,  out  of 
the  knowledge  of  a  stone  as  before  me,  I  can  form  the  judgment 
"  This  stone  is  now  present,"  by  an  analysis  of  the  concrete  cogni- 
tion. The  knowledge  of  self  as  thinking  enables  me,  as  I  distin- 
guish between  the  ego  and  the  particular  thought,  and  observe  the 
relation  of  tlie  two,  to  affirm,  "  I  think."  Nay,  I  believe  that  every 
primary  cognition  may  entitle  me,  by  an  easy  abstraction  and  com- 
parison, to  frame  a  number  of  primary  judgments.  Thus,  the  cog- 
nition of  the  stone  enables  me  to  say,  "  This  stone  exists ;"  "  This 
stone  is  here  ;"  and  if  the  perception  be  by  the  eye,  "  This  stone  is 
extended  ;"  and  if  it  be  by  the  muscular  sense,  "  This  stone  resists 
pressure ;"  while  the  cognition  of  self  as  perceiving  the  stone, 
enables  me  to  affirm,  "  I  perceive  the  stone ;"  "  I  exist  f  "  I  per- 
ceive." The  two  indeed — our  primary  cognitions  and  beliefs  on 
the  one  hand,  and  our  primary  judgments  on  the  other — are  inti- 
mately connected.      Every   cognition  furnishes  the  materials  of  a 


BOOK  III.]  THEIR  GENERAL  NATURE.  209 

judgment  ;  and  a  judgment  possible,  I  do  not  say  actual,  is  in- 
volved in  every  cognition.  As  the  relation  is  implied  in  the  nature 
of  the  individual  objects,  and  the  judgment  proceeds  on  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  nature  of  the  objects,  so  the  two,  in  flict,  may  be  all 
but  simultaneous,  and  it  may  scarcely  be  necessary  to  distinguish 
them,  except  for  rigidly  exact  philosophic  purposes.'  Still  it  is 
the  cognition  which  comes  first,  and  forms  the  basis  on  whicli  the 
judgments  are  founded  ;  in  the  case  of  the  primitive  judgments, 
directly  founded.  It  should  be  frankly  admitted  that  what  is 
given  in  primary  cognition,  is  in  itself  of  the  vaguest  and  most 
valueless  character,  till  abstraction  and  comparison  are  brought  to 
bear  upon  it.  Still  our  cognitions  and  beliefs  furnish  the  materials 
of  all  that  the  discursive  understanding  weaves  into  such  rich  and 
often  complicated  webs  of  comparison  and  inference. 

It  is  to  be  carefully  observed  that  our  primitive  cognitions  and 
beliefs,  being  of  realities,  all  the  intellectual  processes  properly 
founded  on  them  must  relate  to  realities  also.  If  what  we  proceed 
on  be  unreal,  that  which  we  reach  by  a  logical  process  may  also  be 
unreal.  If  space  and  time,  for  example,  have,  as  some  suppose, 
no  reality  independent  of  the  contemplative  mind,  then  all  the  re- 
lations of  space  and  time,  as  unfolded  in  mathematical  demonstra- 
tions, must  also  be  regarded  as  unreal  in  the  same  sense.     On  the 

1  According  to  Locke,  "  Perception  is  the  first  operation  of  all  our  intellectual  faculties, 
and  the  inlet  of  all  knowledge  into  our  minds"  {Essay,  ii.  x.  15).  According  to  the  view 
I  take,  perception  is  knowledge.  According  to  Locke,  "  Knowledge  is  nothing  but  the 
Perception  of  the  Connexion  and  Agreement,  or  Disagreement  and  Repugnancy,  of  any  of 
our  ideas"  Civ.  i.  1).  See  King's  and  Reid's  review  of  this  doctrine  of  Locke,  supra,  p.  90. 
Hamilton  says :  "  Consciousness  is  primarily  a  judgment  or  affirmation  of  existence. 
Again,  consciousness  is  not  merely  the  affirmation  of  naked  existence,  but  the  affirmation 
of  a  certain  qualified  or  determinate  existence"  {Metaph.  Lee.  24.  See  also  Notes  to 
Reid's  Works,  pp.  243,  275).  Dr.  Mansel  says:  "It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general 
canon  of  Psychology  that  every  act  of  consciousness,  intuitive  or  discursive,  is  comprised 
in  a  conviction  of  thu  presence  of  its  object,  either  internally  in  the  mind,  or  externally 
in  space.  The  result  of  every  such  act  may  thus  be  generally  stated  in  the  proposition, 
'  This  ia  here'  "  He  is  obliged  to  distinguish  between  such  a  psychological  judgment  and 
a  logical  one.  "  The  former  is  the  judgnuent  of  a  relation  between  the  conscious  subject 
and  the  immediate  object  of  consciousness.  The  latter  is  the  judgment  of  a  relation 
wliich  two  objects  of  thought  bear  to  each  other"  (Proleij.  Loglca,  Chap.  ii).  What  he  calls 
a  psychological  judgment  seems  tome  to  be  a  cognition,  which  may  be  explicated  into  a  judg- 
ment, which  judgment  will  be  a  logical  one.  Hamilton  and  Mansel  carry  out  still  further 
their  doctrine,  of  comparison  being  involved  in  knowledge.  Dr.  Mansel  quotes  J.  G. 
Fichte :  "  Alles,  was  fur  uns  Etwas  ist,  ist  es  nur  inwiefcrn  es  Etwas  anderes  auch  nicht 
ist;  alle  Position  ist  nur  inoglich  durch  Negation."  Tliis  doctrine  is  in  perfect  consonance 
with  Fichte's  idealism,  but  does  not  consort  so  well  with  Scottish  realism  And  yet 
14 


210  FBIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  n. 

other  hand,  if  space  and  thno  liavc  (as  I  maintain)  an  existence 
irrespective  of  the  mind  thinking  about  tliem,  then  all  the  neces- 
sary relations  drawn  from  our  knowledge  may  also  be  regarded  as 
having  a  reality  independent  of  the  mind  reflecting  on  them.  Not 
that  they  are  to  he  supposed  to  have  an  existence  as  individuals, 
or  independent  of  the  things  related  ;  they  have  precisely  such  a 
reality  as  we  are  intuitively  led  to  believe  them  to  have  ;  that  is, 
they  exist  as  necessary  relations  of  the  separate  things. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  announce  here  generally,  what  will  bo 
shown  specially  at  every  stage  as  wo  advance,  that  all  the  primitive 
judgments  of  the  mind  are  individual.  The  mind  does  not  in  its 
spontaneous  operations  declare  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  same 
thing  to  be  and  not  to  be,  but  upon  being  satisfied  that  a  certain 
thing  exists,  it  at  once  sets  aside  the  thought  or  assertion  that  it 
does  not  exist.  It  does  not  affirm  in  a  general  proposition  that  no 
two  lines  can  enclose  a  space  ;  but  it  says  these  two  lines  cannot 
enclose  a  space  ;  and  it  would  say  the  same  of  every  other  two 
lines.  It  does  not  metaphj^sically  announce  that  every  quality 
implies  a  substance,  that  every  effect  must  have  a  cause,  but  it 
declares  of  this  property  contemplated  that  it  implies  a  substance, 
and  of  this  given  effect  that  it  must  have  had  a  cause.  It  is  out 
of  these  individual  judgments  that  the  general  maxim  is  obtained 
by  a  process  of  generalization.     But  then  it  is  to  be  observed  that 

Hamilton  says  :  "  The  knowledge  of  opposites  is  one  ;  thus  we  cannot  know  what  is  tall 
without  knowing  what  is  short;  we  know  what  is  virtue  only  as  we  know  what  is  vice  j 
the  science  of  health  is  but  another  name  for  the  science  of  disease"  {Metaph.  Lect.  13, 
see  also  34).  So  also  Dr.  Mansel  {Limits  of  Religious  Thougld^  Lect.  S),  "  To  be  con- 
scious, we  must  be  conscious  of  something;  and  that  something  can  only  be  known  as 
that  which  it  is,  by  being  distinguished  from  that  which  it  is  not."  This  seems  to  me  a 
doctrine  wrong  in  itself,  and  of  very  doubtful  tendency.  True,  there  are  some  ideas  con- 
fessedly relative,  such  as  the  ideas  of  tall  and  short.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are 
cognitions,  and  there  are  ideas  which  are  positive;  thus  we  know  self  as  thinking,  we 
know  virtue  as  good,  without  reference  to  anything  else,  and  it  is  because  Vi^e  are  thus  able 
to  know  things  separately  that  we  are  able  to  discover  relations  between  them.  We  do 
not  first  discern  differences  and  then  know  the  things;  we  first  know  the  things  and  then 
observe  points  of  resemblance  or  difference.  And  here  I  am  tempted  to  say  a  word  about 
another  of  Hamilton's  and  Hansel's  laws  or  conditions  of  thought.  All  consciousness,  it 
is  said  (see  >iupra,  p.  194),  implies  a  relation  between  subject  and  object.  Now,  if  this 
means  that  we  can  by  abstraction  separate  the  thinking  mind  from  the  thing  (real  or 
imaginary)  thought  about,  the  maxim  is  true,  but  does  not  serve  the  purposes  of  the  advo- 
cates of  the  relativity  of  knowledge.  For  the  object  in  such  a  case  may  not  be  real,  but 
imaginary,  say  a  griffin.  Again,  when  we  are  thinking  merely  of  self,  say  of  our  past 
Borrows,  there  may  be  no  object  external  to  the  mind.  (On  Subject  and  Object,  see  infra. 
Part  III.  Book  i.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  6.) 


BOOK  III.]  THEIR  GENERAL  NATURE.  211 

it  is  not  a  generalization  of  an  outward  experience, — which  must 
always  be  limited,  and  never  can  furnish  ground  for  a  necessary 
and  universal  proposition, — but  of  inward  and  immediate  judgments 
of  the  mind,  which  carry  in  them  the  conviction  of  necessity, 
which  necessity  therefore  will  attach  itself  to  the  general  maxim, 
on  the  condition  of  our  liaving  properly  performed  the  discursive 
operation. 

It  is  necessary  for  our  purposes  to  classify  the  primary  judg- 
ments pronounced  by  the  mind ;  but  this  is  by  no  means  an  easy 
task.  An  arrangement  may  liowever  serve  very  important  ends, 
even  though  it  be  not  thoroughly  exhaustive  and  altogether  unobjec- 
tionable. The  following  is  to  be  regarded  simply  as  the  best  which 
I  have  been  able  to  draw  out,  and  may  be  accepted  as  a  provisional 
one  till  a  better  be  furnished.'  The  mind  seems  capable  of  noticing 
intuitively  the  relations  of — 

I.  IDENTITY   AND   DIFFERENCE.  V.  QUANTITY. 

II.  WHOLE  AND   PARTS.  VI.  RESEMBLANCE, 

m.  SPACE.  Vn.  ACTIVE  PROPERTY. 

IV.  TIME.  VIIL  CAUSE  AND   EFFECT. 

>  Locke  speaks  of  relations  as  being  infinite,  and  mentions  only  a  few.  He  specifies 
Cause  and  Effect,  Time,  Place,  Identity  and  Diversity,  Proportion,  and  Moral  Relations 
{Essay,  ii.  xxviii).  Hume  mentions  ResemVjlance,  Identity,  Space  and  Time,  Quantity, 
Degree,  Contrariety,  Cause  and  Effect.  Kant's  Categories  are :— (I.)  Quantity;  containing 
Unity,  Plurality,  Totality;  (II.)  Quality;  containing  Reality,  Negation,  Limitation  ;  (III.) 
Relation  ;  comprising  Inherence  and  Subsistence,  Causality  and  Dependence,  Community 
of  Agent  and  Patient;  (IV.)  Modality;  under  which  are  Possibility  and  Impossibility, 
Existence  and  Non-Existence,  Necessity  and  Contingence.  Dr.  Brown  arranges  them  as 
those  of— (I.)  Coexistence;  embracing  Position,  Resemblance  or  Difference,  Proportion, 
Degree,  Comprehension ;  (II.)  Succession ;  containing  Causal  and  Casual  Priority.  Of 
late  there  has  been  a  tendency  among  British  psychologists  to  narrow  the  relations  which 
the  mind  can  discover.  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  account  {Metaph.  Lect.  M),  is  a  retrogression  in 
science.  In  comparison — (1.)  We  affirm  the  existence  of  the  ego  and  non-ego  ;  (2.)  We  dis- 
criminate the  two;  (3.)  We  notice  resemblance  or  dissimilarity ;  (4.)  We  collate  the  phe- 
nomena with  the  native  notion  of  substance;  (.5.)  We  collate  them  with  the  native  notion  of 
causation.  Prof.  Bain  says  {Senses  and  Intellect^  p.  329),  "  What  is  termed  judgment  may 
consi.st  in  discrimination  on  the  one  hand,  or  in  the  sense  of  agreement  on  the  other:  we 
determine  two  or  more  things  either  to  differ  or  to  agree.  It  is  impossible  to  find  any  case 
of  judging  that  does  not,  in  the  last  resort,  mean  one  or  other  of  these  two  essential  activities 
of  the  intellect."  This  account  tends  very  much  to  narrow  the  capacities  of  the  human 
mind.  Mr.  Bain,  in  his  view  of  the  intellect,  mixes  up  together  what  the  Scottish  meta- 
physicians have  carefully  separated,  the  mind's  power  of  discovering  relations  with  the 
laws  of  the  succession  of  our  mental  state. 


212  PRUIITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 


CHAPTER   II. 
RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED  BY  THE  MIND. 

SECT.  I.- RELATION  OF  IDENTITY. 

We  have  seen  that  every  object  known  by  us  is  known  as  having 
being ;  I  do  not  say  an  independent  being,  but  a  separate  and 
individual  being.  This  being  continuing  in  the  object  constitutes 
its  identity.  This  identity  every  object  has  as  long  as  it  exists, 
and  this  whether  the  identity  does  or  does  not  become  known  to 
us  or  to  any  other  created  being.  An  object  has  identity  not  because 
the  identity  is  known  to  us  ;  but  an  object  having  continued  being, 
and  therefore  identity,  intelligent  beings  may  come  to  discover  it. 
We  are  so  constituted  as  to  be  able  to  know  being, — that  is,  that 
the  object  known  to  us  possesses  being, — and  we  look  on  the 
object  as  retaining  that  being  as  long  as  it  exists.  We  are  pre- 
pared to  decide  then  that  if  we  ever  fall  in  with  this  object  again, 
it  will  have  retained  its  identity.  We  may  fall  in  with  the  same 
object  again  without  discovering  it  to  be  the  same,  because  of  a 
defect  of  memory,  or  because  the  object  was  disguised  in  a  crowd. 
But  in  regard  to  certain  objects,  we  cannot  avoid  observing  the 
sameness,  and  cannot  be  deceived  in  pronouncing  them  the  same. 

So  far  as  self  is  concerned,  we  discover  the  identity  intuitively 
as  we  look  on  the  objects  presented  in  self-consciousness  and 
memory.  We  have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  self  in  every  ex- 
ercise of  consciousness.  We  have  a  recollection  of  self  in  some 
particular  state  in  every  exercise  of  memory.  The  mind  has  thus 
before  it,  at  every  waking  moment,  a  knowledge  of  a  present  self; 
and  in  every  exercise  of  memory  it  has  a  past  self ;  and  in  looking 


BOOK  III.]    RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.     213 

at  and  comparing  the  two,  it  at  once  proclaims  tlie  identity.  It 
will  be  observed  that  here,  as  in  every  other  case,  the  judgment 
throws  us  back  on  cognition  and  belief;  the  necessary  facts  on 
which  the  mind  pronounces  the  necessary  judgment,  are  furnished 
in  the  exercise  of  consciousness  and  memory. 

In  regard  to  objects  external  to  the  mind,  we  have  no  such  in- 
tuitive means  of  discovering  an  identity.  Our  original  perceptions 
do  not  extend  even  to  the  identity  of  our  bodily  frame.  Every 
particle  of  matter  in  the  body  may  be  changed  in  seven  years,  as 
physiologists  tell  us,  in  perfect  accordance  with  our  intuitive  per- 
ceptions. We  may  be  without  a  body  in  the  state  between  death 
and  the  resurrection,  and  may  receive  an  entirely  new  and  spiritual 
body  in  heaven,  and  yet  retain  all  the  while  our  identity  and  feel- 
ing of  identity.  And  in  the  case  of  extra-organic  objects  there  is 
always  a  possibility  of  doubt  as  to  whether  what  we  perceive  now 
is  the  same  object  as  fell  under  our  notice  at  some  previous  time. 
The  infant,  prompted  by  his  instinct  as  to  the  continuance  of 
being,  and  making  a  wrong  application  of  it,  will  often  be  inclined 
to  discover  identity  where  there  is  only  resemblance,  will  be  apt, 
for  example,  to  look  on  every  man  he  meets  with  as  his  father. 
As  he  advances  in  life  he  will  be  led  to  pay  more  regard  to  differ- 
ences. As  to  when  there  is  a  sufficient  amount  of  resemblance  to 
denote  a  sameness,  this  is  to  be  determined  solely  by  the  laws 
of  experiential  evidence.  In  some  cases,  as  when  we  recognize  our 
friends  and  familiar  objects,  there  is  moral  certainty  ;  in  other 
cases  there  is  probability,  less  or  greater,  according  to  the  proof 
which  is  perceived  or  can  be  adduced.' 

>  These  views  determine  the  light  in  which  we  should  look  on  as  "  pretty"  a  controversy 
as  ever  raged  in  metaphysics  or  out  of  it,  as  to  whether  two  things  in  every  respect  alike 
— say  two  drops  of  water — would  or  would  not  be  identical.  Leibnitz  held  that  each 
thing  diSered  from  every  other  by  an  internal  principle  of  distinction,  and  that  no  indi- 
viduals could  be  alike  in  every  respect,  and  that  if  they  were,  they  could  have  no  principle 
of  individuation  {Op.  p.  277).  Kant  criticised  this  view,  and  urged  that  even  though 
they  were  in  every  respect  alike,  they  would  difler  as  being  in  difl'erent  parts  of  space 
(  Wtrle,  Bd.  ii.  p.  217).  The  common  representation  was  that  they  would  differ  numeri- 
cally. T  am  not  sure  that  any  of  these  accounts  is  correct.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that 
there  might  be  two  things  in  every  respect  alike,  except  in  their  individual  being.  It  is 
not  their  existence  in  different  i)arts  of  space  which  constitutes  their  dilicrence,  but  aa 
different  in  their  being,  they  exist  in  different  parts  of  space.  They  have  a  distinct  being, 
not  because  they  are  numerically  difl'erent,  but  they  are  numerically  distinct  because  they 
hare  a  distinct  being. 


21 4  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

Tlic  inliiitivc  judgments  are  ahvays  individual,  and  arc  pro- 
nounced on  the  objects  being  presented.  When  generalized,  they 
talce  the  form  of  such  metaphysical  maxims  as  these  :  "  It  is  im- 
possible for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  at  the  same  time." 
"  Everything  preserves  its  identity  as  long  as  it  exists."  "  We  are 
sure  that  -u'c  arc  the  same  beings  as  we  were  since  consciousness 
began,  and  must  continue  the  same  as  long  as  consciousness 
exists." 

The  above  are  judgments  pronounced  on  individual  objects  con- 
templated. Under  the  same  head  there  fall  to  be  placed  predica- 
tions which  the  mind  makes  at  once  and  intuitively  in  regard  to 
relations  which  have  been  previously  perceived  and  sanctioned  by 
the  mind.  Suppose  that,  on  the  ground  of  experience,  we  become 
convinced  that  no  reptile  is  warm-blooded  ;  on  the  bare  contem- 
plation of  the  notions,  we  at  once  and  intuitively  declare  that  no 
warm-blooded  animal  can  be  a  reptile.  In  all  sucli  cases  it  is 
presupposed  that  there  is  a  previously  discovered  relation.  It  is 
possible  that  the  mind  may  have  been  deceived,  and  that  the  rela- 
tion does  not  really  exist  ;  and  in  this  case  the  judgment  pro- 
nounced according  to  the  law  of  identity  would  also  be  wrong 
as  a  matter  of  fact.  Thus  if  a  proposition  were  given  that  "  no 
mammal  is  warm-blooded,"  the  mind  would  pronounce  that  no 
"  warm-blooded  animal  can  be  a  mammal."  The  error,  however, 
would  lie  not  in  the  law  of  thought,  but,  in  the  original  proposi- 
tion furnished. 

This  is  the  proper  place  to  explain  the  famous  distinction  drawn 
by  Kant  between  Analytic  and  Synthetic  Judgments.  Analytic 
Judgments  are  those  in  which  the  predicate  is  involved  in  the  very 
notion  which  constitutes  the  subject ;  as  when  we  say  that  "  an 
island  is  surrounded  with  water,"  "  a  king  has  authority  to  rule," 
"  the  moral  law  should  be  obeyed."  All  such  judgments  are  said 
in  the  nomenclature  of  the  Kantian  school,  to  be  a  'priori.  We 
have  come  to  entertain  certain  apprehensions  in  regard  to  island, 
king,  and  moral  law,  and  now  we  pronounce  a  set  of  judgments  on 
the  bare  contemplation  of  these,  and  involved  in  them  by  the  law 
of  identity.  The  judgments  involved  in  the  general  law  of  identity, 
the  analytic  judgments  of  Kant,  have  been  carefully  examined  of 


BOOK  III.]     RELATIONS  IXTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       215 

late  years  in  Germany.  We  may  give  the  account  by  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  :  "  1.  The  Law,  Principle,  or  Axiom  of  Identity,  which, 
in  regard  to  the  same  thing,  immediately  or  directly  enjoins  the 
affirmation  of  it  with  itself,  and  mediately  or  indirectly  prohibits 
its  negation :  {A  is  A).  2.  The  Law,  etc.,  of  Contradiction  (prop- 
erly Non- Contradiction),  which  in  regard  to  contradictories  ex- 
plicitly enjoining  their  reciprocal  negation,  implicitly  prohibits 
their  reciprocal  affirmation  :  {A  is  not  Not-A).  In  other  words, 
contradictories  are  thought  as  existences  incompatible  at  the  same 
time,  as  at  once  mutually  exclusive.  3.  The  Law,  etc.,  of  Excluded 
Middle  or  Third,  which  declares  that  wliilst  contradictories  are 
only  two,  everything,  if  explicitly  thought,  must  be  thought  as  of 
these,  either  the  one  or  the  other  :  {A  is  either  B  or  not  Not-B), 
In  different  terms  :  ^UBrmatiou  and  Negation  of  the  same  thing, 
in  the  same  respect,  have  no  conceivable  medium  ;  whilst  anything 
actually  may,  and  virtually  must,  be  either  affirmed  or  denied  of 
anything.  In  other  words  :  Every  predicate  is  true  or  false  of 
every  subject ;  or  contradictories  are  thought  as  impossible,  but  at 
the  same  time  one  or  other  as  necessary."*  These  laws  have  a 
great  importance  in  Formal  Logic.  Being  carried  out  and  applied 
in  special  forms,  they  show  what  may  be  drawn  from  any  proposi- 
tion or  set  of  propositions  given,  and  they  keep  thought  consistent 
with  itself. 

Synthetic  (as  distinguished  from  Analytic)  Judgments  are  those 
in  which  the  predicate  affirms  or  denies  something  more  than  is 
embraced  in  the  subject :  as  when  we  say  "  gold  is  yellow,"  "  body 
gravitates,"  "  sin  will  be  punished."  Some  of  these  judgments  are 
a  'posteriori ;  that  is,  we  reach  them  by  experience.  Others  of  them 
are  said  to  be  a  priori  ;  that  is,  the  mind,  on  the  bare  contemplation 
of  the  notions,  at  once  pronounces  the  agreement  or  disagreement. 
As  examples,  there  are  the  mathematical  axioms,  such  as  that  two 
straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space  ;  and  metaphysical  principles, 
such  as  that  every  effect  must  have  a  cause.  In  this  section,  I  have 
given  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  analysis  of  Identical  or  Analytic  Judg- 
ments. In  tlie  remaining  sections,  I  am  to  endeavour  to  unfold  the 
Synthetic  Judgments  a  priori. 

*  Metaph,  Vol.  ii.  App.  ii. 


216  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS,  [paet  ii. 

SiECT.  II.-RELATION  OP  WHOLE  AND  PARTS. 

It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  this  treatise  that  the  mind  begins 
with  the  concrete, — a  truth  wliich  should  always  go  along  with  the 
other,  which  has,  however,  been  more  frequently  noticed,  that  it 
begins  with  the  individual.  Being  thus  furnished  with  the  concrete 
in  its  primary  knowledge  and  beliefs, — and  we  may  add,  imagina- 
tions,— the  mind  can  consider  a  part  of  the  concrete  whole  separate 
from  the  other  parts.  In  doing  so,  it  is  much  aided  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  concrete  whole  seldom  comes  round  in  all  its  entire- 
ness.  The  child  sees  a  man  with  a  hat  to-day  and  without  his  hat 
to-morrow,  and  is  thus  the  better  enabled  to  form  a  notion  of  the 
hat  apart  from  the  man  that  wore  it. 

In  all  abstraction  there  is  judgment  or  comparison ;  that  is,  we 
discover  a  relation  between  two  objects  contemplated.  "We  con- 
template a  concrete  whole,  and  we  contemplate  a  part,  and  observe 
a  relation  of  the  part  as  a  part  to  the  whole.  It  should  be  admit- 
ted that,  without  any  exercise  of  comparison,  we  are  capable  of 
imaging  a  part  of  a  whole,  in  cases  where  the  part  can  be  sepa- 
rated ;  thus,  having  seen  a  man  on  horseback,  I  can  easily  picture 
to  myself  the  man  separately,  or  tlie  horse  separately,  without 
thinking  of  any  relation  between  them  ;  but  in  such  processes 
there  is  no  exercise  of  abstraction.  Abstraction  is  eminently  an 
intellectual  operation.  In  it  we  contemplate  a  part  as  part  of  a 
whole,  say  a  quality  as  a  quality  of  a  substance ;  for  example, 
transparency  as  a  quality  of  ice,  or  of  some  other  substance.  In 
all  such  exercises  there  is  involved  a  Correlative  Power.  This 
power  may  be  called  Comprehension,  inasmuch  as  it  contemplates 
the  whole  in  its  relation  to  the  parts ;  or  Abstraction,  inasmuch  as 
it  contemplates  the  part  as  part  of  a  whole  ;  and  the  Faculty  of 
Analysis  and  Synthesis,  inasmuch  as  it  resolves  the  whole  into  its 
parts,  and  shows  that  the  parts  make  up  the  whole.  There  is,  if  I 
do  not  mistake,  intuition  involved  in  every  exercise  of  this  power. 
The  operations  of  the  intuition  are  always  singular,  but  they  may 
be  generalized,  and  being  so,  they  will  give  us  the  following  as 
involved  in  Abstraction. 

1.  TJie  Abstract  implies  the  Concrete.     This  arises  from  the  very 


BOOK  III.]  RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.      217 

nature  of  abstraction.  When  an  object  is  before  it  in  the  concrete, 
the  mind  can  separate  a  quality  from  the  object,  and  one  quality 
from  another.  It  can  distinguish,  for  example,  between  a  man 
taken  as  a  whole,  and  any  one  quality  of  his,  such  as  bodily 
strength  ;  and  distinguish  between  any  one  quality  and  another, 
as  between  his  bodily  strength  and  intellectual  power,  between  his 
intellectual  faculties  and  his  feelings,  and  between  any  one  feeling, 
sucli  as  joy,  and  any  otlier  feeling,  such  as  sorrow.  But  we  are 
not  to  suppose  that,  while  we  can  tlius  distinguish  between  a  whole 
and  its  parts,  between  an  object  and  its  qualities,  between  one 
quality  and  another,  therefore  the  part  can  exist  independent  of 
the  whole,  or  the  quality  of  its  object.  Every  abstracted  quality 
implies  some  concrete  object  from  which  it  has  been  separated  in 
thought, 

2.  Jllien  the  Concrete  is  Real,  the  Abstract  is  also  Real.  In  this 
respect  there  is  a  truth  in  the  now  exploded  doctrine  of  realism. 
Abstraction,  if  it  proceeds  on  a  reality  and  is  properly  conducted, 
ever  conducts  to  realities.  It  is  thus  a  most  important  intellectual 
exercise  for  the  discovery  of  truth,  enabling  us  to  discover  the  per- 
manent amidst  the  fleeting,  the  real  amidst  the  phenomenal.  As 
I  look  on  a  piece  of  magnetized  iron,  I  know  it  to  be  a  real  exist- 
ence, and  I  think  of  it  as  having  a  certain  form,  and  of  its  attract- 
ing certain  objects,  and  I  must  believe  that  this  figure  is  a  reality 
quite  as  much  as  the  iron  which  has  the  form,  and  that  the  attrac- 
tive power  is  not  a  mere  fiction,  any  more  than  the  iron  of  which 
it  i^  a  property.  But  it  is  to  be  carefully  observed  that  this  abstract 
thing,  while  it  has  an  existence,  has  not  necessarily  an  independent 
existence.  We  have  already  seen  that  when  it  is  a  quality  it  must 
always  be  the  quality  of  a  substance.  Beauty  is  certainly  reality, 
but  it  has  no  existence  apart  from  a  beautiful  person  or  scene,  of 
whom  or  of  which  it  is  an  attribute. 

A  philosopher,  says  Kant,  was  asked.  What  is  the  weight  of 
smoke  ?  and  he  answered, — Subtract  the  weight  of  the  ashes 
from  the  weight  of  the  fuel  burned,  and  we  have  the  weight  of 
smoke.  At  the  basis  of  his  judgment  is  the  intuitive  maxim  that 
the  whole  is  equal  to  tlie  sum  of  its  parts.  The  individual  intuitive 
judgments  which  the   mind   pronounces  on  looking   at  whole  and 


218  PRIMITIVE  JUDG3IENTS.  [part  ii. 

pai-ts  may  perhaps  be  all  generalized  into  two  principles.  (1.)  The 
parts  make  up  the  whole,  (2.)  Tlie  wliole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of 
its  parts.  From  tlie  first  of  these  we  may  derive  the  rules,  tliat 
the  abstract  part  is  involved  in  the  concrete  whole,  and  that  the 
abstract,  as  part  of  a  real  concrete  thing,  is  also  a  real.  From  the 
first  we  have  the  rule  tliat  the  parts  are  less  than  the  whole,  and 
from  the  second  the  n^axim  that  tlic  whole  is  greater  than  the 
parts.  It  is  of  importance  to  have  such  maxims  as  these  accurately 
enunciated  in  mathematical  demonstration  and  logical  and  meta- 
physical science.  Spontaneously,  however,  the  mind  does  not  form 
any  such  general  axioms,  which  are  merely  the  generalized  expression 
of  its  individual  judgments. 

Still,  the  maxim  is  underlying  many  of  our  thoughts  in  all 
departments  of  investigation.  Thus  in  Natural  History  it  urges 
us  to  seek  for  a  classification  in  which  all  the  members  of  any 
subdivision  will  make  up  the  whole.  It  impels  the  chemist  to 
look  out  for  all  the  elements  which  go  to  constitute  the  compound 
substance.  In  psychology  and  metaphysics  it  prompts  us  to 
analyze  a  concrete  mental  state  into  parts,  and  insists  that  in  the 
synthesis  the  parts  be  equal  to  the  whole.  In  logic  it  demands, 
as  a  rule  of  division,  that  tlie  members  make  up  the  class,  and  is 
involved  in  all  those  processes  in  which  we  infer  (in  subalternation) 
that  what  is  true  of  all  must  bo  true  of  some  ;  or  (in  disjunctive 
division)  that  what  is  true  of  one  of  two  alternatives  (A  and  B), 
and  is  not  true  of  one  (A),  must  be  true  of  the  other  (B).  In  most 
of  such  cases  the  more  prominent  elements  are  got  from  experi- 
ence ;  in  some  of  them,  other  intuitions  act  the  more  important 
part ;  but  in  all  of  them  there  are  intuitions  of  whole  and  parts 
underlying  the  mental  processes, — unconsciously  and  covertly,  no 
doubt,  but  still  capable  of  being  brought  out  to  view  for  scientific 
purposes. 

SECT.  III.— RELATIONS  OF  SPACE. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  mind  in  sense-perception 
has  a  knowledge  of  objects  as  occupying  space,  and  that  round 
these  original  cognitions  there  gather  certain  native  beliefs.    Upon 


BOOK  III.]      RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       219 

the  contemplation  of  the  oLjects  thus  apprehended,  the  mind  is  led 
at  once  and  necessarily  to  pronounce  certain  judgments.  They  may 
be  arranged  as  follows  : — 

1.  There  are  all  the  mathematical  axioms  which  relate  to  limited 
extension,  such  as,  "  The  sliortest  distance  betAveen  any  two  points 
is  a  straight  line  ;"  "  Two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space  ;" 
"  Two  straight  lines  which  when  produced  the  shortest  possible 
distance  are  not  nearer  each  other,  will  not,  if  produced  ever  so 
far,  approach  nearer  each  other  ;"  "  All  right  angles  are  equal  to 
one  another."  Under  the  same  head  are  to  be  placed  the  postulates 
involved  in  the  definitions  and  in  the  propositions  founded  on 
them,  such  as  the  following,  put  in  the  form  of  maxims  :  "  A 
straight  line  may  be  drawn  from  any  one  point  to  any  other 
point  ;''  "  A  straight  line  may  be  produced  to  any  length  in  a 
staight  line  ;"  "  There  may  be  such  a  figure  as  a  circle,  that  is,  a 
plane  figure  such  that  all  straight  lines  drawn  from  a  certain  point 
within  the  figure  are  equal  to  one  another  ;"  and  that  "  A  circle 
may  be  described  from  any  centre  at  any  distance  from  that  centre." 
I  shall  have  occasion,  in  spealdng  of  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  this  treatise  to  mathematics,  to  return  to 
axioms,  and  shall  then  show  that  the  intuitive  judgments  pro- 
nounced by  the  mind  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  space  are  all 
individual,  and  tliat  the  form  assumed  by  them  in  the  axioms  of 
geometry  is  the  result  of  the  generalization,  not  indeed  of  an  out- 
ward experience,  but  of  the  individual  decisions  of  the  mind. 

2.  There  are  certain  axioms  in  regard  to  motion,  such  as  that 
"  All  motion  is  in  space  ;'  "  All  motion  is  from  one  part  of  space 
to  another  ;"  "  All  motion  is  by  an  object  in  space  ;"  "  A  body  in 
passing  from  one  part  of  space  to  another  must  pass  through  the 
whole  intermediate  space." 

3.  There  are  the  primitive  truths  which  arise  from  the  relation 
of  objects  to  space,  such  as  "  Body  occupies  space  ;"  "  Body  is 
contained  in  space  ;"  "  Body  occupies  a  certain  portion  of  space  ;" 
and  thus  "  Body  has  a  defined  figure."  But  what,  it  may  be  asked, 
do  our  intuitive  convictions  say  as  to  the  relation  of  mind  and 
space  ?  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  our  intuition  declares  of  spirit, 
that  it  must  be  in  space.    It  is  clear,  too,  that  so  far  as  mind  acts 


220  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

on  body,  it  must  act  on  body  as  in  space,  say  in  making  that  body 
move  in  space.  But  beyond  this,  I  am  persuaded  that  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing  the  relations  whicli  mind  and  space  bear  to  each 
other.  As  to  wliether  spirit  does  or  does  not  occupy  space,  this  is  a 
subject  on  which  intuition  seems  to  say  notliiiig,  and  I  suspect  that 
experience  says  as  little. 

4.  There  are  certain  metaphysical  judgments  as  to  space,  such  as 
"  Space  is  continuous  ;"  "  Space  cannot  be  divided  in  the  sense  of 
its  parts  being  scj)arated  ;"  and  all  those  derived  from  the  infinity 
of  space,  such  as  tliat  "  Space  has  no  limits  ;"  "  Any  line  may  be 
infinitely  prolonged  in  space." 


SECT.   IV.— THE  RELATIONS  OF  TIME. 

The  apprehension  of  time  is  given  in  every  exercise  of  memory  ; 
we  remember  the  event  as  having  happened  in  time  past.  Round 
this  primary  conviction  there  collect  a  number  of  beliefs.  When 
time  thus  apprehended  is  contemplated  by  us,  we  are  led,  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  object,  to  make  certain  affirmations  and  denials. 
It  declares  that  "  Time  is  continuous  ;"  that  "  Time  cannot  be 
divided  into  separable  parts  ;"  and  that  "  Time  has  no  limits." 
The  mind  also  declares  that  "  every  event  happens  in  time." 


SECT,  v.— TUE  RELATIONS  OF  QUANTITY. 

These  are  equivalent  to  the  relations  of  proportion  referred  to 
by  Locke,  and  the  relations  of  proportion  and  degree  mentioned 
by  Brown  ;  they  are  the  relations  of  less  and  more.  The  mind, 
in  discovering  them,  proceeds  upon  the  knowledge  previously 
acquired  of  objects  as  being  singulars,  that  is,  units  ;  it  is  upon  a 
succession  of  units  coming  before  it  that  the  judgment  is  pro- 
nounced. It  also  very  frequently  proceeds  on  other  relations 
which  have  been  previously  discovered  ;  on  perceiving,  for  instance, 
that  objects  resemble  each  other  in  respect  of  space,  time,  and 
property,  we  may  notice  that  they  have  less  or  more  of  the  common 
thing  in  respect  of  which  they  agree. 


BOOK  III.]  RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.      221 

It  is  to  this  intuition  I  refer  the  power  which  the  mind  has  of 
discovering  the  relation  of  simple  numbers.  A  high  authority 
on  this  subject  has  given  a  somewhat  different  account.  Dr. 
Whewell  refers  our  conception  of  number  to  the  sense  of  succes- 
siveness, or,  as  I  would  render  it,  the  faculty  which  discovers  the 
relations  of  Time.  "  The  conception  of  number  appears  to  require 
the  exercise  of  the  sense  of  succession.  At  first  sight,  indeed,  we 
seem  to  appreliend  number  without  any  act  of  memory,  or  any 
reference  to  time  ;  for  example,  we  look  at  a  horse,  and  see  that 
his  legs  are  four,  and  this  we  seem  to  do  at  once  without  reckoning 
them.  But  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  this  seeming  instanta- 
neousness  of  the  perception  of  small  numbers  is  an  illusion.  This 
resembles  the  many  other  cases  in  which  we  perform  short  and 
easy  acts  so  rapidly  and  familia'rly  that  we  are  unconscious  of 
them,  as  in  the  acts  of  seeing,  and  articulating  our  words.  And 
this  is  the  more  manifest,  since  we  begin  our  acquaintance  with 
number  by  counting  even  the  smallest  numbers.  Children,  and 
very  rude  savages,  must  use  an  effort  to  reckon  even  their  five 
fingers,  and  find  a  difficulty  in  going  further.  And  persons  have 
been  known  who  w^ere  able  by  habit,  or  by  peculiar  natural 
aptitude,  to  count  by  dozens  as  rapidly  as  common  persons  can  by 
units.  We  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  when  we  appear  to  catch 
a  small  number  by  a  single  glance  of  the  eye,  we  do,  in  fact,  count 
the  units  of  it  in  a  regular  though  very  brief  succession.  To  count 
requires  an  act  of  memory  ;  of  this  we  are  sensible  when  we  count 
very  slowly,  as  when  we  reckon  the  strokes  of  a  church  clock ;  for 
in  such  a  case  we  may  forget  in  the  intervals  of  the  strokes,  and 
miscount.  Now  it  will  not  be  doubted  that  the  nature  of  the 
process  in  counting  is  tlie  same,  whether  we  count  fast  or  slow. 
There  is  no  definite  speed  of  reckoning  at  which  the  faculties  which 
it  requires  arc  changed,  and  therefore  memory,  which  is  requisite 
in  some  cases,  must  be  so  in  all."  I  entirely  concur  with  this 
statement.  I  am  convinced  that  the  perception  of  the  relations  of 
time,  is  presupposed  in  our  discerning  the  relations  of  number. 
But  there  may  be  more  required.  Dr.  Whewcll  appends  a  foot- 
note, "  If  any  one  holds  number  to  be  apprehended  by  a  direct  act 
of  intuition,  as  space  and  time   arc,  this  view  will  not  disturb  the 


222  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ir. 

other  doctrines  delivered  in  the  text."'  I  believe  tliat  one,  or  unity, 
is  involved  in  our  ju-iniary  cognition  of  objects.  Not  that  I  think 
it  necessary  to  call  in  a  special  intuition  in  order  to  our  being  able 
to  count  or  number ;  but  I  believe  that,  besides  the  exercise  of 
memory,  and  the  discovery  of  the  relations  of  the  succession  in 
time,  there  must  be  the  general  power  of  discovering  the  relations  of 
quantity  :  we  must  be  able,  not  only  to  go  over  the  units,  but  further, 
to  discover  the  relations  of  the  units  and  of  their  combinations. 

To  this  faculty  I  refer  all  those  operations  in  which  we  discover 
equality,  or  difference,  or  proportions  of  any  kind,  in  numbers. 
Tlie  mental  capacity  is  greatly  aided,  and  its  intuitive  perceptions 
are  put  in  a  position  to  act  more  readily  and  extensively,  through 
the  divisions  and  notations  by  tens  in  our  modern  arithmetic ; 
every  ten,  every  hundred,  every  thousand,  and  so  on,  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  a  unit,  and  the  judgments  in  regard  to  units  are  made 
to  reach  numbers  indefinitely  large.  These  numerical  judgments 
admit  of  an  application  to  extension  in  space.  Fixing  on  a  cer- 
tain length,  superficies  or  solid,  as  a  unit,  we  form  judgments  which 
embrace  lines  or  surfaces  or  solids  never  actually  measured.  I  am 
persuaded  that,  even  in  its  common  or  practical  operations, — as, 
for  example,  in  the  measurement  of  distance  by  tlie  eye, — the  mind 
fixes  on  some  known  and  familiar  Icngtli  as  its  standard,  and 
estimates  larger  space  by  this.  Ever  since  Descartes  conceived 
the  method  of  expressing  curve  lines  and  surfaces  by  means  of 
equations,  mathematics  may  be  said  to  be  concerned  with  quantity 
as  their  summum  genus.  The  judgments  as  intuitive  are  all  indi- 
vidual, but  they  can  be  generalized,  when  they  will  assume  such 
forms  as  tlie  "  Common  Notions,"  so  far  as  they  relate  to  quantity, 
prefixed  by  Euclid  to  his  Elements.  "Things  which  are  equal  to 
the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another."  "If  equals  be  added 
to  equals,  the  wholes  are  equal."  "  If  equals  be  taken  from  equals, 
the  remainders  are  equal."  "If  equals  be  added  to  unequals,  the 
wholes  are  unequal."  "  If  equals  be  taken  from  unequals,  the 
remainders  arc  unequal."  "  Things  which  are  double  the  same 
thing  are  equal  to  one  anotlier."  "Things  which  are  half  the 
same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another." 

'  EUtory  of  Scientific  Ideas,  ii,  x.  4. 


BOOK  III.]    RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.     223 

SECT.   VI.— THE  RELATIONS  OF  RESEMBLANCE. 

It  has  been  generally  acknowledged  that  man's  primar}'  knowl- 
edge is  of  individual  objects  :  not  that  he  as  yet  knows  tiiem  to 
be  individual ;  it  is  only  after  he  has  been  able  to  form  general 
notions  that  he  draws  the  distinction,  and  finds  that  what  ho  first 
knew  was  singular.  What  is  meant  is,  that  the  boy  does  not 
begin  with  a  notion  of  man  or  woman,  or  humanity  in  general, 
but  with  a  knowledge  of  a  particular  man,  say  his  father,  or  a  par- 
ticular woman,  say  his  mother  ;  and  it  is  only  as  other  men  and 
other  women  come  under  his  notice,  and  he  observes  their  points 
of  agreement,  tliat  he  is  able  to  rise  to  the  general  notion  of  man, 
or  woman,  or  humankind. 

In  the  mental  processes  involved  in  generalization,  the  most 
important  part  is  the  observational  one.  When  we  discover,  for 
example,  the  resemblance  of  plants,  and  proceed  to  group  them 
into  species,  genera,  and  orders,  the  operation  is  one  of  induction 
and  comparison.  There  is  no  necessity  of  thought  involved  in  the 
law  that  roses  have  five  petals,  or  that  fishes  are  cold-blooded,  or 
indeed  in  any  of  tlie  laws  of  natural  history.  Still  there  are  laws 
of  thought  which  have  a  place  in  the  generalizing  process. 

1.  The  tmiverscd  implies  sinrjulars. — The  mind  pronounces  this 
judgment  when  it  looks  at  the  nature  of  the  individuals  and  the 
generals.  The  universal  is  not  something  independent  of  the 
singulars,  prior  to  tlie  singulars,  or  above  the  singulars.  A  general 
notion  is  the  notion  of  an  indefinite  number  of  objects  possessing 
a  common  attribute  or  attributes,  and  includes  all  the  objects 
possessing  the  common  quality  or  qualities.  It  is  clear,  there- 
fore, that  the  general  proceeds  on  and  presupposes  individuals. 
If  there  were  no  individuals,  there  would  be  no  general  ;  and  if 
tlie  individuals  were  to  cease,  the  general  would  likewise  cease. 
If  there  were  no  individual  roses,  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as 
a  class  of  plants  called  roses, 

2.  When  the  sinrjulars  arc  real,  the  universalis  also  real ;  always, 
of  course,  on  the  supposition  that  the  generalization  lias  been 
properly  made.  There  exists,  we  shall  suppose,  in  nature,  a 
number  of  objects  possessing  common  attributes  ;  we  have  observed 


22i  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

tliclr  points  of  resemblance,  and  put  tlicm  in  a  class  :  lias,  or  has 
not,  the  class  an  existence  ?  In  reply,  I  say  that  the  genus  has  an 
existence  and  a  reality  as  well  as  the  individual  objects.  An  in- 
definite number  of  animals  chew  the  cud,  and  are  called  ruminant ; 
the  class  ruminant  has  an  existence  quite  as  much  as  the  individual 
animals.  But  let  us  observe  what  sort  of  reality  the  class  has  ;  it  is 
a  reality  merely  in  the  individuals,  and  in  the  possession  of  common 
qualities  by  these  individuals. 

3.  Whatever  is  ijredicated  of  a  class  may  he  predicated  of  all  the 
members  of  the  class  :  and  vice  versa,  whatever  is  predicated  of  all 
the  members  of  a  class,  may  be  predicated  of  the  class.  This  is  a 
self-evident  and  necessary  proposition.  It  is  pronounced  by  the 
mind  in  an  individual  form  whenever  it  contemplates  the  relation 
of  a  class  and  the  members  of  the  class  ;  thus,  if  the  general 
maxim  be  discovered  or  allowed,  that  all  reptiles  are  cold-blooded, 
and  the  further  fact  be  given  or  ascertained  that  the  crocodile  is 
a  reptile,  the  conclusion  is  pronounced  that  the  crocodile  is  cold- 
blooded. 

We  shall  discover,  when  we  come  to  apply  these  general  prin- 
ciples, that  the  laws  mentioned  in  this  section  play  an  important 
part  in  Logic,  and  have  a  place  in  the  Notion,  in  the  Judgment, 
and  in  Reasoning. 

SECT.  VII.— RELATIONS  OF  ACTIVE  PROPERTY. 

I  have  been  striving  to  prove  that  we  cannot  know  either  self 
or  body  acting  on  self,  except  as  possessing  property.  On  looking 
at  the  properties  of  objects,  the  mind  at  once  pronounces  certain 
decisions.  These,  like  all  our  other  intuitive  judgments,  have  a 
reference,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  individual  case  presented,  but 
may  be  made  universal  by  a  process  of  generalization.  Thus,  the 
mind  declares,  "  this  property  implies  a  substance  ;"  "  this  substance 
will  exercise  a  property."  The  abstract  truths  will  seldom  be  for- 
mally enunciated,  but,  as  regulative  principles,  they  underlie  our 
common  thoughts,  and  we  proceed  on  them,  even  when  entirely 
unaware  of  their  nature  or  of  their  existence.  Every  action  or 
manifestation  we   intuitively  regard  as  the  action  or  exhibition  of 


BOOK  in.]  RELATIOXS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.  225 

a  something  having  a  suljstantial  Ijeing.  On  falling  in  with  a  new 
substance,  say  an  aerolite  just  dropped  from  the  heavens,  we  know 
not  indeed  what  its  properties  are,  but  we  are  sure  that  it  has 
properties,  and  we  make  an  attempt  to  discover  them. 

SECT.  VIII.— RELATION   OF   CAUSE   AND   EFFECT. 

All  our  primitive  judgments  carry  us  back  to  primitive  cognitions 
and  beliefs,  that  is,  they  are  pronounced  by  the  mind  as  it  looks  to 
objects  intuitively  known  or  necessarily  believed  in.  The  judgment^ 
which  aiBrms  that  the  cause  must  produce  its  effect,  and  that  the 
effect  has  resulted  from  a  cause,  proceeds  from  and  is  grounded  on 
a  cognition  which  has  already  passed  under  our  notice,  the  intuitive 
knowledge  of  substance  exercising  power.  It  will  appear,  as  we 
advance,  that  those  who  overlook  or  deny  the  mind's  primary  knowl- 
edge of  power,  can  give  no  adequate  or  satisfactory  account  of  the 
nature  or  meaning  of  the  causal  judgment. 

It  will  be  needful  to  show  here,  first  of  all,  that  the  judgment 
is  not  derived  from  the  generalizations  of  outward  experience.  As 
we  do  so,  it  will  be  necessary  to  state,  though  it  will  not  be  neces- 
sary to  dwell  on  it  after  the  enunciations  which  have  been  so  often 
repeated,  that  our  conviction  is  not  of  a  general  truth,  but  relates 
solely  to  individual  facts  presented  to  or  contemplated  by  the 
mind.  Our  original  judgment  is  not  that  every  cause  has  an 
effect,  and  that  every  effect  has  a  cause, — propositions  which  will 
not  be  admitted  and  cannot  be  understood  till  the  words  "cause" 
and  "  effect,"  terms  very  abstract  and  general,  be  explained, — but  it 
is  that  this  thing  having  power,  may  produce  an  effect,  and  that 
this  thing  apprehended  as  a  new  thing  or  as  having  been  changed 
must  have  had  a  cause. 

In  proceeding  to  prove  that  the  mental  conviction,  thus  under- 
stood, is  not  derived  from  experience,  I  am  disposed  to  admit  at 
once  that  observation  might,  without  any  original  intuition,  lead 
to  a  loose  general  belief  in  cause  and  effect.  On  seeing  two  events 
in  frequent  juxtaposition,  we  might  be  disposed  when  we  see  the 
one  to  think  of  the  other  by  the  ordinary  law  of  association,  and 
when  we  see  the  one  to  expect  the  other,  as  the  result  of  a  process 
15 


22G  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

of  generalization.  This  I  frcelj  admit  ;  bnt  I  maintain,  at  the  same 
time,  that  the  intuitive  conviction  is,  in  fact,  one  powerful  means  of 
making  us  associate  cause  and  effect  so  naturally  in  our  minds,  and 
to  generalize  our  experience  of  causation.  Any  experiential  con- 
viction would  necessarily  want  certain  essential  elements  ever  found 
in  our  conviction  regarding  causation. 

First,  it  would  not,  as  being  the  result  of  generalization,  operate 
at  so  early  a  period  of  life  as  our  belief  in  cause  and  effect  evidently 
does.  The  causal  belief  is  as  strong  in  infancy  as  in  mature  life 
or  in  old  age,  is  as  strong  among  savages  as  in  civilized  countries 
in  which  scientific  observation  has  made  the  greatest  advances. 
True,  savage  nations  have  not  a  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
which  is  a  result  (as  shall  be  shown  further  on)  of  observation  ; 
they  discover  events  which  arc  thought  to  have  no  cause  in  nature, 
but  then  they  seek  for  a  cause  beyond  nature.  Now,  if  the  con- 
viction of  causation  w^ere  like  the  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
a  principle  derived  from  induction, — which  must  necessarily  be  a 
large  induction, — it  would  be  difficult  to  account  for  its  existence 
and  its  invariable  operation  in  tlie  earliest  stages  of  individual  life 
and  of  society.  I  admit  that  all  this  merely  proves  that  there  is  a 
native  instinct  or  inclination  prompting  us  to  rise  from  an  effect 
to  a  cause,  and  hy  no  means  justiiies  us  in  standing  up  for  a 
necessary  conviction. 

Sccowlhj,  it  would  scarcely  account  for  the  universality  of  the 
belief  among  men  brought  up  in  such  various  countries  and  situa- 
tions, attached  to  such  different  sects  and  creeds,  and  under  the 
influence  of  all  kinds  of  whim  and  caprice.  This  can  be  most 
satisfactorily  explained  by  supposing  that  there  is  a  native  prin- 
ciple at  work,  inclining  and  guiding  all  men.  Such  a  consideration, 
I  allow,  does  not  show  that  the  conviction  is  a  fundamental  one, 
nor  would  I  urge  it  as  in  itself  a  positive  proof  of  the  existence 
even  of  a  native  instinct :  still  it  is  a  strong  presumption.  Indeed 
the  theory  which  supposes  that  there  is  some  original  impulse  or 
inclination,  is  the  only  one  which  can  give  a  full  explanation  of 
all  the  beliefs  which  man  cherishes,  arid  the  judgments  which  he 
invariably  pronounces. 

Thirdly,  it  would  not  account  for  the  fundamental  and  necessary 


BOOK  III.]  BELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       227 

character  of  the  judgmcut.  This  is  the  conclusive  circumstance, 
of  which  the  others  are  to  be  regarded  as  merely  corroborations. 
No  possible  length  or  uniformity  could  or  should  give  this  neces- 
sity of  conviction  to  the  judgment.  We  might  have  seen  A  and  B, 
this  stone  and  that  stone,  this  star  and  that  star,  this  man  and  that 
man  together,  a  thousand,  or  a  million,  or  a  billion  of  times,  and 
without  our  ever  having  seen  them  separate,  but  this  would  not 
and  ought  not  to  necessitate  us  to  believe  that  they  have  been  for 
ever  together,  and  shall  be  for  ever  together,  and  must  be  for  ever 
together.  No  doubt  it  would  lead  us,  when  we  fell  in  with  the 
one  to  look  for  the  other,  and  we  would  wonder  if  the  one  pre- 
sented itself  without  the  other  ;  still,  it  is  possible  for  us  to  con- 
ceive, and,  on  evidence  being  produced,  to  believe,  that  there  may 
be  the  one  witliout  the  other.  It  was  long  supposed  that  all 
metals  are  comparatively  heavy,  but  while  every  one  was  aston- 
ished at  the  fact,  no  one  was  prepared  to  deny  it,  when  it  was 
shown  by  Davy  that  potassium  floated  on  water.  Down  to  a  very 
recent  date  civilized  men  had  never  seen  a  black  swan,  yet  no 
naturalist  was  ever  ?o  presumptuous  as  to  affirm  tliat  there  never 
could  be  such  an  animal  ;  and  when  black  swans  were  discovered 
in  Australia,  scientific  men  no  doubt  wondered,  but  never  went 
so  far  as  to  deny  the  fact.  A  very  wide  and  uniform  experience 
would  justify  a  general  expectation,  but  not  a  necessary  conviction ; 
and  this  experience  is  liable  to  be  disturbed  at  any  time  by  a  new 
occurrence  inconsistent  with  what  has  been  previously  known  to 
us.  But  the  belief  in  the  connexion  between  cause  and  effect  is  of 
a  totally  different  character.  We  can  believe  that  two  things  which 
have  been  united  since  creation  began,  may  never  be  united  again 
while  creation  lasts  ;  but  we  never  can  be  made  to  believe,  or 
rather  think,  judge,  or  decide  (for  this  is  tlie  right  expression) 
that  a  change  can  take  place  without  a  cause.  We  can  believe 
that  night  and  day  might  henceforth  be  disconnected,  and  that 
from  and  after  this  day  or  some  other  day  there  would  only  be 
perpetual  day  or  perpetual  night  on  tlie  earth  ;  but  we  could  never 
be  made  to  decide  that,  tlie  causes  wliich  produced  day  and  night 
being  the  same,  there  ever  could  be  any  other  effect  than  day  or 
night.      We    could   believe,   on    sufficient  evidence,  that  the  sun 


228  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

might  not  rise  ou  our  earth  to-uiorrow,  but  we  never  could  be  made 
to  judge  that,  the  sun  and  earth  and  all  other  tilings  necessary  to 
the  sun  rising  on  our  earth  abiding  as  they  arc,  the  luminary  of 
day  should  not  run  his  round  as  usual.  We  see  at  once  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  the  judgment  of  the  mind  in  the 
two  cases  ;  in  the  case  in  which  we  have  before  us  a  mere  con- 
junction sanctioned  l)y  a  wide  and  invariable  induction,  and  that 
in  which  we  have  an  effect,  and  connect  it  with  its  cause.  The  one 
belief  can  be  overcome,  and  should  be  overcome  at  any  time  by  a 
new  and  inconsistent  fact  coming  under  our  observation  ;  whereas 
in  regard  to  the  other,  we  are  confident  that  it  never  can  be  modified 
or  set  aside,  and  we  feel  that  it  ought  not  to  be  overborne. 

It  is  to  be  carefully  noticed  that  while  we  have  a  native  and 
necessary  conviction,  it  docs  not  announce  what  effect  any  given 
cause  must  produce,  or  what  is  the  cause  of  any  given  effect.  On 
an  effect  presenting  itself  to  our  notice,  we  believe  that  it  must 
have  a  cause,  but  what  the  cause  is,  is  to  be  determined,  after  all, 
by  observation.  On  discovering  a  new  substance,  say  a  metal,  we 
anticipate  that  it  will  act  in  some  particular  way  on  the  needful 
conditions  being  supplied  ;  but  how  it  will  act,  chemically  or  mag- 
netically, or  in  reference  to  any  other  agent,  we  cannot  predict 
beforehand.  It  is  of  the  utmost  moment  that  we  ever  take  this 
view  of  the  intuitive  principle  when  we  would  use  it  in  specula- 
tion, and  that  we  should  distinctly  know  what  it  cannot  do,  as  well, 
as  what  it  can  do.  It  is  meant  to  be  a  regulative  principle  under- 
lying and  guiding  our  inquiries,  but  it  is  not  intended  to  supersede 
experience.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  when  an  effect  or  a  cause  is 
presented,  that  the  intuitive  principle  begins  to  operate,  and  con- 
strains us  to  look  for  a  'cause  or  an  effect.  And  as  to  what  the 
precise  cause  or  effect  may  be,  even  this  is  not  announced  by  the 
conviction,  but  is  to  be  discovered  by  experience  ;  that  is,  having 
discovered  that  a  substance  has  operated  in  a  certain  way  in  time 
past,  we  are  sure  that  it  will  so  operate  again  ;  and  having  found 
that  a  particular  effect  has  proceeded  from  a  certain  cause,  we  are 
sure,  on  the  same  effect  presenting  itself,  that  it  must  have  come 
from  the  same  cause.  It  thus  appears  that  intuition  and  expe- 
rience combine,  each  meanwhile  liaving  its  own  province,  in  all  the 


BOOK  III.]   RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.      229 

judgments  which  wc  pronounce  as  to  the  mode  of  the  operation  of 
any  given  cause,  or  the  cause  of  any  given  effect.  It  is  our  special 
business,  in  what  remains  of  this  section,  to  determine  in  an  induc- 
tive manner  what  is  involved  in  our  conviction  of  cause  and  effect, 
and  the  relation  between  them. 

I.  Cause  implies  a  Substance  witli  Potency.  This  doctrine  was 
explicitly  stated  and  defended  by  Leibnitz,  and  lias  been  incidentally 
admitted  by  many  who  were  not  prepared  to  adhere  to  the  general 
statement.*  We  never  know  of  a  causal  influence  being  exercised, 
except  by  an  object  having  being  and  substantial  existence.  We 
decide,  and  must  decide,  that  every  effect  proceeds  from  one  or 
more  substances  having  potency.  If  a  tree  is  felled  to  the  ground, 
if  the  salt  we  saw  dry  a  minute  ago  is  now  melted,  if  a  limb  of  man 
or  animal  is  broken,  we  not  only  look  for  a  cause,  but  we  look  for 
a  cause  in  something  that  had  being  and  property,  say  in  the  wind 
blowing  on  the  tree,  or  in  water  mingling  with  the  salt,  or  in  a 
blow  being  inflicted  on  the  limb  by  a  stick  or  other  hard  substance. 
When  Ave  discover  effects  produced  by  light,  heat,  electricity,  or 
similar  agents,  whose  precise  nature  has  not  been  discovered,  we 
regard  them  either  as  separate  substances,  or  if  this  seems  (as  it 
does)  highly  improbable,  we  regard  them  as  properties  or  affections 
of  substances.  If  this  world  be  an  effect,  we  look  for  its  cause  in  a 
Being  possessed  of  power. 

And  this,  I  may  remark  in  passing,  seems  to  be  the  reason  why 
we  do  not  place  Time  and  Space  under  the  law  of  causation.  Causes 
operate  and  effects  take  place  in  time  and  space,  but  we  are  not  led 
to  look  on  duration  and  place  producing  effects,  or  being  themselves 
affected  by  any  agents.  We  talk,  indeed,  of  time  effecting  mighty 
changes,  say  in  elevating  or  abrading  the  earth's  surface,  or  in  revo- 
lutionizing society,  and  changing  men's  opinions  and  sentiments  ; 
but  the  language  is  elliptical,  and  it  means,  when  the  steps  are 
fully  unfolded,  that  powers  residing  in  substances  produce  effects 
when  time  is  allowed  them.  So  far  as  we  know,  or  can  know,  of 
time  or  space,  we  look  on  them  as  unchanged  and  unchangeable, 
though  it  would  be  presumptuous  in  us  to  affirm  that  they  can  in 
no  way  be  affected  or  influenced  by  the  Divine  Power. 

1  See  suj>ra,  pp.  Ii2, 150,  160. 


230  PliUIITIVE  JUDG3IENTS.  [part  ii. 

II.  Power  residing  in  substance  is  exercised  when  the  needful 
conditions  are  supplied.  All  creature  power  is  conditioned  and 
limited  :  it  is  a  power  to  produce  a  certain  particular  effect.  Com- 
monly, if  not  invariably,  there  is  need,  as  has  been  shown  in  treat- 
ing of  Power,  of  tlie  concurrence  of  two  or  more  agencies  in  order 
to  action,  and  there  will  be  operation  only  when  there  is  coopera- 
tion. The  very  power  of  God  is  in  a  sense  qualified,  it  is  guided 
by  that  which  should  ever  direct  it,  by  His  will,  which  is  holy  and 
benevolent.  But  confining  our  attention  to  creature  power,  mental 
or  material,  it  has  always  a  rule,  or  defined  mode  of  action,  and 
can  act  only  in  a  particular  way,  and  to  a  certain  extent.  That 
which  is  necessary  to  the  exercise  of  power  in  substance  may  be 
called  the  conditions,  and  it  is  only  on  the  conditions  being  sup- 
plied that  power  is  exercised.  A  magnet  has  a  power  of  attract- 
ing iron,  but  it  is  only  when  iron  is  within  reach  that  the  property 
is  active. 

There  is  a  sense,  and  an  important  sense,  in  which  power  may 
be  said  to  be  in  the  substance,  to  be  inherent  in  the  substance,  to 
constitute,  indeed,  an  element  in  the  nature  of  the  substance.  In 
this  sense  the  power  of  the  substance  is  always  the  same ;  that  is, 
the  same'  substance  will  always  act  in  the  same  way  on  the  condi- 
tions being  supplied.  Allotropisra  may  seem  an  exception,  but  it 
is  so  only  in  appearance ;  for  when  phosphorus  produces  one  effect 
in  one  state,  and  another  effect  in  another  state,  it  is  because  of 
some  change  produced  by  heat,  or  electricity,  or  some  other  agent  ; 
and  tliat  the  power  continues  the  same,  is  evident  from  the  circum- 
stance that  when  the  substance  is  brought  back  from  its  allotropic 
state,  it  exercises  the  same  power  as  it  did  at  first,  a  clear  proof 
that  in  the  allotropic  state  it  was  simply  put  under  new  conditions. 
It  appears  from  tliese  statements  that  there  may  be  perfect  pro- 
priety in  speaking  of  latent  power,  that  is,  of  a  power  not  in  action 
because  the  conditions  needful  to  its  operations  are  not  supplied. 
Nay,  it  is  possible,  I  do  not  say  probable,  that  there  are  properties 
both  of  mind  and  matter  which  are  usually  occult,  and  only  appear 
in  action  on  rare  occasions.  Some  have  even  supposed  that  the 
soul  has  capacities  which  are  altogether  dormant  here  (like  the 
capacity  of  the  dumb  to  learn  languages  if  only  they  had  hearing), 


BOOK  III.]  RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       231 

and  are  to  be  awakened  into  life  only  on  the  conditions  needful  to 
their  exercise  being  presented  in  the  world  to  come. 

III.  There  must  be  an  adequacy  or  sufficiency  of  power  to  pro- 
duce the  effect.  "We  look  not  only  for  a  cause,  but  for  a  competent 
cause.  Experience,  it  is  true,  and  experience  alone,  can  tell  us 
what  is  a  sufficient  cause,  as  it  alone  can  inform  us  what  is  the 
cause.  Still  there  seems  to  be  an  inherent  conviction  of  the  mind 
which  leads  us,  in  looking  for  a  cause,  to  make  the  cause  equal  to 
the  work  which  it  accomplishes.  Powers  differ  in  kind,  and  they 
differ  in  degree.  There  is  need,  for  instance,  of  more  than  human 
power  to  create  a  substance  out  of  nothing.  There  is  need  of  more 
than  tlie  power  residing  in  material  substance  to  produce  thought 
and  emotion  and  will.  The  ant  which  carries  a  seed  of  grain,  is 
not  competent,  like  man,  to  carry  a  sack  of  corn  ;  and  the  strength 
of  man  is  inadequate  to  raise  a  weight  which  can  be  lifted  with 
ease  by  a  steam-engine.  Tlic  lily  can  reproduce  a  lily  after  its 
kind,  but  cannot  produce  a  pine  or  an  oak.  These  facts,  I  am 
aware,  can  be  known  only  by  observation.  But  underneath  all  our 
experiential  knowledge  there  is  a  necessary  principle  which  con- 
strains us,  when  we  discover  an  effect,  to  look  not  only  for  a  cause, 
but  a  cause  witli  the  kind  of  power  which  is  fitted  to  produce  the 
kind  of  effect,  and  to  proportion  the  extent  of  the  power  to  the 
extent  of  the  effect.  This  original  principle  is  the  source  of  a 
number  of  most  important  derivative  ones  ;  as,  when  we  have 
found  a  substance  exercising  a  certain  sort  of  power,  we  anticipate 
that  it  will  always  exercise  the  same  sort  of  power,  and  when  we 
have  found  it  exercising  a  certain  amount  of  force,  we  expect  that 
it  will  always  be  fit  for  the  same, — of  course,  always  on  the  neces- 
sary conditions  being  furnished.  Thus,  having  found  that  our 
minds  can  follow  a  train  of  reasoning,  we  are  sure  that  they  will 
always  be  able  to  do  so, — of  course,  on  the  supposition  that  the 
bodily  organism  needful  to  mental  operation  in  man  is  not  in  a 
state  of  derangement.  The  amount  of  force  which  drives  a  ball  a 
certain  distance  to-day,  we  are  sure  will  impel  it  to  the  same  dis- 
tance to-morrow.  If  a  definite  weight  of  oxygen  has  been  ascer- 
tained chemically  to  unite  with  a  certain  definite  weight  of  hydro- 
gen, we  arc  sure  it  will  ever  do  so  ;  and  if  we  find  the  very  same 


232  F JIBUTI VF  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

ainount  of  oxygen  not  drawing  to  it  the  same  amount  of  liydrogen, 
WQ  argue  that  there  must  have  been  some  change  in  tlic  conditions 
of  the  oxygen.  It  is  acknowledged  that  in  such  judgments  there 
is  and  must  be  an  observational  element,  which  in  spontaneous 
thought  is  ever  the  more  prominent, — it  is  ever  the  one  about 
which  the  mind  is  most  anxious,  as  being  the  only  doubtful  one  ; 
still  there  is  also  a  necessary  principle,  which  is  overlooked  only 
because  it  is  indisputable  and  invariable.  Rising  from  earthly  to 
heavenly  things,  we  look  on  God,  who  has  produced  works  in  which 
are  traces  of  such  large  power  and  admirable  wisdom,  as  a  Being 
possessed  of  power  and  wisdom  corresponding  to  the  effects  we 
discover,  and  as  capable,  whenever  He  may  see  fit,  of  producing 
works  distinguished  by  the  same  lofty  characteristics. 

IV.  There  is  a  necessary  relation  between  tlie  cause  and  the 
effect,  arising  from  the  necessity  of  the  cause  to  produce  the  effect 
wdien  the  conditions  are  furnished.  The  principles  laid  down  in 
])reccding  sections  seem  to  me  to  establish  this  truth,  and  so  to 
clear  up  the  subject  round  which  the  discussions  regarding  causa- 
tion have  chiefly  turned  since  the  days  of  Hume.  Perverting  and 
turning  to  his  own  purposes  the  views  regarding  sensation  which 
had  been  maintained  by  Locke  and  other  metaphysicians,  the  great 
sceptic  represents  the  mind  as  starting  with  impressions  ;  and  it 
seems  to  me  certain  that,  were  there  nothing  beyond  this  in  the 
original  intuitions  of  the  mind,  it  would  be  impossible  to  show 
how  it  could  ever  reach  the  knowledge  of  realities.  Many  of  the 
opponents  of  Hume  have  not  seen,  or  at  least  have  not  adopted,  the 
proper  method  of  meeting  him.  Kant  supposes  the  mind  to  start 
with  phenomena,  and  not  with  things  ;  and  when  he  subsequently 
calls  in  a  category  of  cause  and  effect,  it  is  avowed  that  it  cannot 
apply  to  things,  but  simply  to  phenomena.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown 
saw  clearly  that  our  belief  in  cause  and  effect  is  intuitive,  and  so 
far  his  views  are  sound,  and  most  eloquently  and  forcibly  illus- 
trated ;  but,  supposing  the  mind  to  start  with  mere  sensations, 
and  not  with  the  knowledge  of  things,  with  things  possessing 
power,  he  never  reached  adequate  views  of  the  relation  between 
the  cause  and  the  effect.  Differing  widely  from  Hume  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  mental  principle  which  leads  us  to   believe  in  the 


BOOK  III.]      RELA  TIONS  IKTUITIVEL  Y  OB.SER  VED.       233 

connexiou  between  cause  and  effect,  lie  regards  the  objective  con- 
nexion as  merely  invariable  antecedence  and  consequence.  In 
sustaining  this  tenet  lie  wastes  an  immense  amount  of  ingenuity 
in  showing  that  there  is  nothing,  no  link  of  any  kind,  between  the 
cause  and  the  effect.  True,  I  say  and  I  maintain  that,  except  in 
the  way  of  loose  metaphor,  no  one  ever  asserted  that  there  was. 
But  in  all  this  argument  he  blinks  the  main  question, — and  yet  it  is 
ever,  as  appears  from  chance  expressions,  pressing  itself  on  him, — 
which  is  not  as  to  what  is  hehveen  the  cause  and  effect,  but  what  is 
there  in  the  agents  acting  as  the  cause  to  produce  the  effect.  If  he 
had  supposed  the  mind  to  begin  with  the  cognition  of  self  and  of 
body  exercising  power,  he  would  have  found  more  in  the  relation 
than  the  mere  invariability  of  the  succession ;  he  would  have  dis- 
covered a  power  in  the  substance  or  substances  acting  as  the  cause, 
and  that  the  invariableness,  so  far  from  being  the  primary  circum- 
stance, was  a  necessary  consequence  of  this. 

The  invariability  then  carries  us  back  to  a  more  important  cir- 
cumstance, to  the  power  which  is  intuitively  known  to  be  in  sub- 
stance. When  the  substances  have  the  conditions  furnished,  they 
act,  and  effects  must  follow.  The  acting  substances  in  the  relation 
needful  to  their  action  is  thus  the  true  cause,  the  unconditional 
cause  (to  use  a  phrase  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's),  the  invariable  cause 
ever  followed  by  its  proper  and  peculiar  effects.  This  view  however 
lends  no  sanction  whatever  to  the  rash  statements  of  M.  Cousin, 
who  speaks  about  its  being  necessary  for  God  to  create.  True, 
creation  must  follow  if  He  put  forth  the  volition,  but  then  He  has 
a  will  free  to  put  forth,  or  withhold  the  creating  act.  Creation 
nmst  spring  into  being  if  He  will  it,  but  to  will  it  is  an  element 
(always  along  with  power)  in  that  cause  of  which  a  created  object 
is  the  effect.  The  same  remark  holds  good,  within  certain  limita- 
tions, of  the  acts  of  man  :  when  he  wills  it,  certain  effects  follow, 
as  when  he  wills  to  lift  the  arm,  the  arm  must  move  if  the  organs 
be  in  a  healthy  condition;  but  in  this  and  all  similar  cases,  while 
the  effect  is  necessary,  it  is  on  the  presupposition  of  a  cause  in 
which  will  and  free  will  is  an  essential  element.  In  other  cases 
the  effects  follow  from  a  power  in  substance,  acting,  so  far  as  man 
can  know,  without  any  exercise  of  will.     When  I  hear  of  the  death 


23-i  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ir. 

of  a  friend,  and  a  torrent  of  grief  flows  into  my  bosom,  or  when  a 
spark  fulls  on  gunpowder,  and  an  explosion  follows,  there  is  no 
exercise  of  creature  will  (tliough  there  may  possibly  be  a  concur- 
rence of  the  Divine  Will  necessary  to  all  creature  action)  ;  but 
Avhethcr  there  be  or  be  not  room  for  free  will  in  the  cause  or  sub- 
stances acting,  there  is  a  necessary  connexion  between  these  sub- 
stances acting  (with  or  without  free  will)  and  their  proper  effect. 
The  mind,  in  contemplating  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect, 
declares  the  relation  to  be  necessary,  and  cannot  be  made  to  believe 
otherwise,  and  decides  that  it  is  a  necessity  arising  from  the  power 
intuitively  known  as  in  the  substance.  It  is  to  reverse  the  proper 
order  of  things  to  resolve  the  necessitv  into  the  invariableness  :  the 
invariableness  is  the  result  of  a  necessity  arising  from  the  potency 
of  substance. 

Y.  An  effect  is  known  as  either  a  new  substance,  or  as  a  change 
in  a  previously  existing  substance.  The  production  of  a  new  sub- 
stance, or  even  of  a  new  power,  property,  or  capacity  in  an  old  sub- 
stance, is  altogether  beyond  human  power.  It  is  probably  beyond 
all  creature  power.  It  seems  to  be  the  special  prerogative  of  God 
to  create  out  of  nothing.  A  large  induction  seems  to  inform  us  that, 
in  creating  substances,  he  imparted  to  them  all  their  qualities  and 
properties  ;  and  man  can  as  little  add  to  the  powers  in  the  substances, 
as  he  can  add  to  the  substances  in  the  universe.  Another  kind  of 
effect,  and  the  one  which  alone  falls  under  our  common  observation, 
consists  in  a  previously  existing  substance  being  put  in  a  new  state  ; 
this  is  the  only  effect  which  can  be  produced  by  any  modification  of 
physical  action,  as  by  mechanical  or  chemical  action  ;  nay,  it  is  the 
only  effect  which  can  be  produced  by  mental  action  or  human  action 
of  any  description.  Taking  advantage  of  natural  powers,  we  may 
find  a  body  in  one  condition  and  put  it  in  another ;  or,  accommo- 
dating ourselves  to  mental  laws,  we  may  produce  changes  in  our  own 
state  of  mind  :  but  here  our  power  terminates.  We  are  informed 
of  all  this  by  an  enlarged  experience  rather  than  by  intuition  ;  but 
our  primary  conviction  seems  to  say,  that  as  every  cause  is  found 
in  a  substance,  so  every  effect  is  also  in  a  substance,  which  may,  as 
induction  shows,  be  either  a  totally  new  substance,  or  a  substance 
undergoing  some  modification. 


BOOK  III.]  RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       235 

From  this  doctrine  of  causation,  tliere  follow  several  corollaries 
of  no  little  consequence  in  the  settlement  of  speculative  questions. 

1.  When  the  effect  is  real,  that  is  a  real  thing  or  substance 
produced  or  changed,  the  cause  must  also  be  real,  that  is,  a  real 
thing-  or  substance.  No  doubt,  it  is  quite  possible  for  man,  endowed 
as  he  is  with  the  power  of  imagination  as  well  as  cognition,  to 
conjure  up  a  fanciful  effect,  say  to  fancy  that  some  mysterious 
power  is  exercising  a  malign  influence  upon  him,  and  in  sucli  a 
case  the  cause  must  be  as  imaginary  as  the  effect  (though  even 
here  the  intuitive  law  of  causation  will  constrain  him  to  seek  for 
producing  power  in  some  human  or  angelic  being,  in  some  magnetic 
or  stellar  influence)  ;  but  if  the  effect  be  a  real  occurrence,  the 
cause  must  also  be  in  actual  existence.  Taking  this  view  with  us, 
we  see  how  those  metaphysicians  who  suppose  that  the  mind 
primitively  knows  only  phenomena,  (that  is,  appearances),  can  never 
satisfactorily  go  beyond  a  phenomenology,  or  reach  a  God  who  has 
any  other  sort  of  existence  than  the  phenomena,  and  the  mental 
laws  which  bind  them.  But  if  the  world  be  a  reality,  if  mind  be 
a  real  thing,  and  body  a  real  thing,  and  the  heavens  and  earth  be 
real  things,  and  if  they  be  effects  of  power  which  must  of  neces- 
sity be  supra-mundane,  then  the  constitutional  laws  of  the  mind 
insist  that  the  cause  must  also  be  real,  and  is  to  be  found  in  a 
Being  possessed  of  the  adequate  and  competent  power. 

2.  The  mind  is  not  necessitated  to  seek  for  an  endless  series  of 
causes.  As  the  doctrine  of  causation  is  sometimes  stated,  it  might 
appear  as  if  we  were  required,  in  following  the  chain  of  cause  and 
effect,  to  go  back  ad  infinitum.  It  is  said,  in  a  loose  way,  that 
every  object  must  have  a  cause  ;  and  then,  as  this  cause  must  also 
have  a  cause,  it  might  seem  as  if  we  were  compelled  to  go  on  for 
ever  from  one  link  to  another.  In  particular,  it  might  appear  as 
if  we  could  never  legitimately  argue  from  the  law  of  causation  iu 
favour  of  this  world  being  caused ;  for  if  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  be  universal,  then  we  must  seek  for  a  cause,  not  only  of  the 
world,  but  of  the  Being  who  made  the  world  ;  and  if  it  be  not 
universal,  then  it  is  conceivable  that  this  world  may  be  one  of  the 
things  which  are  not  caused.  This  is  an  objection  urged  with 
great  confidence  by  Kant ;   and  a  large  school  of  metaphysicians 


23G  PBUIITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

seem  to  tliiuk  that  it  is  fatal  to  any  argument  in  favour  of  the 
Divine  existence  derived  from  human  intelligence,  as  in  every  such 
aro-umcnt  the  law  of  causation  must  enter  as  an  element.  Kant 
endeavours  to  escape  from  the  dismal  consequences  in  which  he 
felt  tliat  he  was  being  engulfed,  by  declaring  that  the  law  of  cause 
find  effect,  which  thus  required  au  infinite  regressus,  was  a  law  of 
tliought  and  not  of  things,  and  by  calling  in  a  moral  argument 
(which  argument  has  again  been  assailed  by  the  very  objections 
wliich  Kant  directed  against  the  speculative  argument — for  if  our 
intelligence  be  a  delusion,  why  may  not  our  moral  convictions  also 
be  so  ?)  ;  while  a  large  body  of  thinkers  have  appealed  to  some 
sort  of  mysterious  faith  which  will  not  submit  to  be  examined  or 
even  expressed.  But,  with  all  deference  to  these  bold  asseverations, 
I  maintain  that  if  only  this  Cosmos  can  be  shown  to  bear  marks 
of  being  an  effect,  the  argument  from  causation  can  carry  us  up  to 
a  supra-mundane  cause,  while  it  does  not  require  us  to  go  back  to 
a  cause  of  that  cause.  All  inquiry  into  causation  conducts  us  to 
substance ;  but  it  does  not  compel  us  to  go  on  further,  or  to  go  on 
for  ever.  The  law  of  causality  does  insist  that  the  world,  as  an 
effect,  must  have  a  cause  in  a  Being  possessing  power  ;  and  if,  in 
inquiring  into  the  nature  of  that  Being,  we  find  reason  to  believe 
that  He  or  it  must  be  an  effect,  it  would  insist  on  us  going  on  to 
look  out  for  a  further  cause.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  no 
signs  of  that  Being  who  made  the  world  being  an  effect,  our 
intuition  regarding  causation  would  be  entirely  satisfied  in  looking 
on  that  Being  as  uncaused,  as  self-existent,  as  having  power  in 
Himself  It  thus  appears  that  this  difficulty,  which  has  puzzled 
so  many,  has  arisen  entirely  from  a  misapprehension  and  perver- 
sion of  the  law  of  causation,  commencing  with  Hume,  and  pre- 
sented in  a  new  form  by  Kant.  It  is  removed  at  once  by  an 
inductive  investigation  of  our  cognition  of  power,  and  of  our 
judgment  regarding  causation.' 

1  It  is  a  circumstance  worthy  of  being  noted,  that  the  powerful  mind  of  Kant,  in  his 
chase  after  the  Unconditioned,  represented  by  him  as  ideal,  finds  a  progressus  or  a 
regressus  of  some  kind  or  other  in  time,  in  space,  in  matter,  in  cause,  in  the  possible  or 
actual,  but  admits  fully  and  explicitly  that  in  regard  to  substance  the  reason  has  no 
ground  to  proceed  regressively  with  conditions.  In  regard  to  causality  we  have  a  series 
of  causes  which  go  back  unendingly,  the  unconditioned  being  the  absolute  totality  of  the 
series.     But  in  substance  there  is  no  such  regressus.     "  Was  die  Kategorien  des  realen 


BOOK  III.]  RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.       237 

3.  By  obsernng  and  classifying  the  effects,  we  may  obtain  a 
knowledge  of  the  substances  from  which  the  efifects  proceed. 
Powers  residing  in  substances  differ  in  kind  and  in  degree  in 
different  substances.  The  power  of  creation  differs  from  the  power 
of  simply  producing  changes  in  what  already  exists.  Power  in 
spiritual  beings  differs  from  power  in  inanimate  creation.  Even 
when  tlie  power  is  the  same  in  kind,  it  may  differ  in  degree  in 
different  individuals.  iSTow  it  is  by  a  careful  observation  and 
generalization'  of  its  actings,  and  of  the  effects  that  follow,  that  we 
are  enabled  to  gather  our  chief  knowledge  of  substance.  In  con- 
ducting such  an  investigation  in  a  scientific  manner,  we  put  in 
one  class,  and  usually  designate  by  a  common  name,  tlie  acts 
which  are  alike  in  their  main  features,  and  argue  legitimately  that 
there  is  a  faculty  in  the  substance  to  produce  these  effects.  It  is 
thus  from  a  classification  of  the  actings  of  natural  substances  that 
we  seek  to  rise  to  a  knowledge  of  the  properties,  general  and 
specific,  of  body.  It  is  thus  that  we  observe  and  generalize  the 
acts  of  the  mind,  and  so  endeavour  to  ascertain  its  faculties.  It  is 
thus,  that  from  a  careful  generalization  of  the  acts  of  God,  the 
theologian  attempts  to  give  something  like — he  should  profess  to 
do  no  more — a  systematic  account  of  His  attributes.  All  this 
does  not  imply,  though  some  are  ever  telling  us  that  it  does,  that 
we  are  dividing  the  unity  of  the  soul,  or  the  unity  of  God.  In 
proceeding  in  this  inductive  manner  we  are  taking  the  only  plan 
available  to  us  of  becoming  acquainted  with  those  powers  or  attri- 
butes which  constitute  an  essential  element  in  the  human  soul  and 
in  the  Divine  Mind. 

4.  By  combined  intuition  and  experience  we  may  often  be 
enabled  to  argue  that  effects  of  a  particular  description  imply 
causes  of  a  particular  kind  and  degree.  Intuition  insists  that  not 
only  there  be  a  cause  of  tlie  effect,  but  that  the  cause  be  sufficient. 

Verliiltniases  unter  den  Erscheinungen  anlangt,  so  schickt  sich  die  Kategorie  der  Substanz 
mil  iVireu  Accidenzen  nicht  zj  einer  transsceiidentalen  Idee,  d.  i.  die  Verniinft  hat  keineii 
Grund,  in  Ansehung,  ihrer  regressiv  auf  Bedingungen  zii  gehen"  (Kritih  d.  r.  Vernunft,  p. 
S28).  We  have  only  to  connect  this  doctrine  of  substance,  not  necessarily  calling,  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  reason,  for  a  rer/ressut,  with  his  admission  that  substance  involves 
power  (see  supra,  p.  142,  foot-note)  to  be  able  to  maintain,  and  this  without  falling  into  any 
contradiction,  that  the  effects  seen  in  nature  of  a  power  above  nature,  argue  a  substance 
having  power,  for  which  we  are  not  required  to  seek  for  a  cause. 


238  PRIMITIVE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

Experience  then  comes  in  to  give  us  information  as  to  certain 
effects  coming  from  certain  causes  or  substances,  and  not  coming 
from  certain  others.  We  do  not  expect  inanimate  objects  to  pro- 
duce the  effects  that  flow  from  the  action  of  the  plant,  nor  tlic  plant 
to  accomplish  what  is  done  by  the  animal,  nor  body  to  effect  what 
can  be  done  by  mind.  A  very  wide  induction  informs  us  that  order 
and  adaptation  come  from  a  being  capable  of  contemplating  means 
and  end,  and  are  not  to  be  looked  for  from  material  forces  operating 
blindly  and  unintelligently.  All  this  may  not,  it  is  true,  be  intuitive 
or  apodictic,  but  it  is  the  result  of  a  large  and  uniform  observation, 
and  it  connects  itself  with  a  primary  conviction  which  demands 
an  adequacy  in  the  cause,  and  is  satisfied  when  it  is  directed  to  a 
Supreme  Intelligence,  the  source  of  all  the  system  and  utility  to  be 
found  in  the  universe. 

5.  The  intuitive  conviction  gives  no  sanction  whatever  to  the 
maxims  that  like  can  only  act  on  like,  or  like  only  proceed  from 
like,  or  that  the  effect  must  resemble  the  cause.  All  these  proceed 
from  narrow  views  of  cause,  making  that  universal  which  holds  good 
only  in  certain  cases.  Like  things  do  influence  each  other,  but 
unlike  things  also  exercise  a  mutual  affection,  as  when  acid  acts  on 
an  alkali.  The  offspring  of  plants  and  animals  do  resemble  their 
parents  ;  but  there  are  effects  which  are  in  no  way  like  their  cause, 
as  when  the  sun's  heat  makes  the  ice  to  melt.  By  laying  down  such 
maxims,  philosophers  landed  themselves  in  innumerable  diflSculties ; 
they  could  not  allow  that  body  could  influence  mind,  or  mind  body, 
or  conceive  how  it  was  possible  for  the  physical  universe  to  proceed 
from  a  spiritual  God ;  and  tiiey  helped,  with  other  Cartesian  prin- 
ciples, to  shut  up  Spinoza  into  a  pantheism  which  would  admit  of 
only  one  substance.  But  sucli  maxims  have  no  foundation  in  intui- 
tion, and  they  are  contradicted  by  experience.  The  maxim  is  not, 
the  cause  and  effect  must  be  alike,  but  that  the  cause  must  be  com- 
petent to  produce  the  effect. 

6.  It  is  not  a  sufficiently  accurate  expression  of  the  principle 
of  causation,  to  declare  that  like  causes  in  like  circumstances 
will  produce  like  effects.  When  the  law  is  announced  in  this 
vague  form,  we  lose  ourselves  in  determining  what  amount  of 
resemblance  there  must  be  in  the  causes  and  in  the  effects,  and  in 


BOOK  III.]  INFLATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED.      239 

estimating  the  relative  importance  of  the  causes  and  of  the  circum- 
stances. A  philosophical  account  of  the  cause  must  specify  the 
likeness  necessary,  and  embrace  tlie  circumstances.  We  must 
tlierefore  bring  in  substance  and  the  power  in  substance  acting 
according  to  a  rule.  Every  created  substance  is  endowed  with 
power  of  a  certain  kind  and  amount,  which  will  act  on  the  needful 
conditions  being  supplied  ;  and  the  correct  statement  is,  that  the 
same  substances,  acting  in  the  same  relation,  will  always  produce 
the  same  effects. 

7.  Our  intuitive  conviction  is  not  of  the  uniformity  or  continu- 
ance of  the  course  of  nature.  This  is  the  vague  shape  in  which 
the  principle  appears  in  the  works  of  Reid  and  Stewart.  "  God," 
Bays  the  former,  "  hath  implanted  in  liuman  minds  an  original 
principle,  by  which  we  believe  and  expect  the  continuance  of  the 
course  of  nature,  and  the  continuance  of  tliose  connexions  which 
we  have  observed  in  time  past."  "  Antecedent  to  all  reasoning, 
we  have  by  our  constitution  an  anticipation  that  there  is  a  fixed 
and  steady  course  of  nature.'"  Tiiis  is  far  too  loose  a  form  in 
which  to  present  the  maxim ;  indeed  it  is  altogether  incorrect, 
and  may  land  us,  if  logically  followed  out,  in  very  serious  conse- 
quences. Instead  of  having  a  belief  in  the  permanence  or  con- 
tinuance of  the  course  of  things,  the  great  body  of  mankind — 
nearly  all  in  the  earlier  and  simpler  ages  of  society,  and  almost  all 
who  live  beyond  the  pale  of  the  countries  in  which  physical 
science  is  cultivated — look  upon  this  world  as  liable  to  constant 
interferences  on  the  part  of  supernatural  agencies,  in  cases  in 
which  they  do  not  regard  events  as  being  produced  by  chance  or 
caprice.  It  is  vain,  therefore,  to  speak  of  the  belief  in  the  unifor- 
mity of  nature  as  a  self-evident,  a  necessary,  or  a  universal 
principle.'' 

1  Collected  Writings,  pp.  198,  199. 

2  Mr.  .T.  S.  Mill  is  successful  iu  showing  {Logic,  Book  iii.  Chap,  xxi.)  that  man's  belief 
ID  the  nnifortnity  of  nature  is  the  result  of  experience,  that  it  is  entertained  only  by  the 
educated  and  civilized  few,  and  that  even  among  such  it  has  been  of  slow  growth.  But 
Mr.  Mill  lias  fallen  into  a  glaring  "fallacy  of  confusion"  in  confounding  our  belief  in 
causation  with  our  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature.  The  distinction  was  before  him, 
at  least  for  an  instant,  when,  speaking  of  the  irregularities  of  nature,  he  says  :  "  Such 
phenomena  were  commonly,  in  that  early  stage  of  human  knowledge,  ascribed  to  the 
direct  intervention  of  the  will  of  gome  supernatural  being,  and  therefore  still  to  a  cause. 
This  shows  tlie  strong  tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  ascribe  every  phenomena  to  some 


240  .  PBBIITIFE  JUDGMENTS.  [part  ii. 

Besides,  if  wo  liavc  an  intuitive  belief  in  the  permanence  of 
nature,  it  Avill  be  impossible  to  believe  that  nature  was  created,  or 
tliat  tliere  can  be  any  miracles  or  interference  with  the  agencies  of 
nature  by  a  supernatural  power  ;  for  no  evidence  adduced  in  be- 
half of  creation  or  Divine  interposition  could  ever  be  so  strong  as 
the  necessary  belief  in  direct  opposition  to  it.  But  the  fact  is,  that 
all  sucli  maxims  as  that  the  course  of  things  is  uniform,  and  that 
like  may  be  expected  in  like  circumstances,  are  the  result,  not  of 
any  fundamental  principle  of  intelligence,  but  of  experience  ;  and 
the  same  experience  which  determines  how  far  they  are  true  must 
determine  also  how  they  are  to  be  understood,  how  they  are  modi- 
fied, and  what  are  the  exceptions  to  them.  Natural  science  proves 
that  while  the  usual  rule  is  that  all  plants  and  animals  proceed 
from  parents  of  the  same  kind,  there  must  yet  have  been  a  time  or 
times  when  new  species  appeared  on  the  earth  l)y  a  supernatural 
power,  or  at  least  a  power  not  at  work  in  the  present  processes  of 
nature.  Tiie  world  as  a  whole  bears  marks  of  being  an  eifect,  and 
there  must  have  been  a  time  when  it  was  produced  by  a  power 
above  itself.  In  the  inspired  writings  we  have  evidence  of  works 
being  done  by  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  by  Jesus  and  the  Apostles, 
surpassing  the  power  of  man  or  of  physical  nature.     All  tliis  is 

cause  or  other."  It  is  of  this  tendency  that  I  alKrm  that  it  is  native  and  irresistible. 
He  tells  us  that  one  "  accustomed  to  abstraction  and  analysis,  who  will  fairly  exert  his 
faculties  for  the  purpose,  will,  when  his  imajrination  has  once  learned  to  entertain  the 
notion,  find  no  dilficulty  in  conceiving  that  in  some  one,  for  instance,  of  the  many 
firmaments  into  which  sidereal  astronomy  now  divides  the  universe,  events  may  succeed 
one  another  at  random,  without  any  fixed  law;  nor  can  anything  in  our  experience,  or 
in  our  mental  nature,  constitute  a  sufficient,  or,  indeed,  any  reason  for  believing  that  this 
is  nowhere  the  case."  I  have  remarked  on  this  eX&awhvra  (Method  of  Divine  Government, 
p.  528).  "  This  statement  about  fixed  laws  is  ambiguous.  If  by  fixed  law  be  meant 
simply  order  and  uniformity  among  physical  events,  the  statement  is  true.  But  if 
meant  to  signify  an  event  without  a  cause,  material  or  mental,  the  statement  is  contra- 
dicted by  our  '  mental  nature,' which  impels  us  to  seek  for  a  cause  of  every  event.  He 
is  right  in  affirming  that  '  experience'  cannot  authorize  such  a  belief;  but  it  is  just  as 
certain  that  our  '  mental  nature'  constrains  us  to  entertain  it;  and  surely  if  there  be  laws 
in  physical  nature,  there  m.iy  also  be  trustworthy  laws  in  our  mental  nature."  There  is 
the  same  confusion  of  two  different  things  in  the  following  passage :  "  The  uniformity  in 
the  succession  of  events,  otherwise  called  the  law  of  causation,  nnist  be  received  not  as 
the  law  of  the  universe,  but  of  that  portion  of  it  only  which  is  within  the  range  of  our 
means  of  sure  observation,  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  extension  to  adjacent  cases."  I 
freely  admit  all  this  in  regard  to  the  order  observable  everywhere  in  our  Cosmos ;  there 
may  or  may  not  be  a  similar  uniformity  in  the  regions  of  space  beyond.  But  our  mental 
nature  will  not  allow  us  to  think,  judge,  or  believe  (these,  and  not  "  conceive,"  which  is 
ambiguous,  are  the  proper  phrases),  that  in  this  our  world,  or  in  any  other  world,  there 
can  be  an  event  without  a  cause. 


BOOK  III.]      RELATIONS  INTUITIVELY  OBSERVED,       241 

inconsistent  with  a  belief  in  tlie  absolute  uniformity  of  tlie  course  of 
nature,  but  it  is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  intuitive  conviction.  If 
the  world  be  an  eifect,  we  seek  for  a  cause  above  the  world  ;  if  the 
new  species  of  animated  beings  cannot  have  been  produced  by  natural 
agencies,  v^-c  call  in  a  supernatural  cause  ;  if  the  miracles  of  Scripture 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  human  power,  we  call  in  Divine  Power  ; 
and  we  feel,  meanwhile,  that  so  far  from  our  native  convictions  being 
violated,  they  are  gratified  to  the  full  when  they  learn  of  the  events, 
otherwise  inexplicable,  being  referred  to  causes  adequate  to  produce 
them.  It  thus  appears  that  those  difficulties  which  have  been  pro- 
pounded so  pompously  about  the  impossibility  of  proving  that  there 
can  have  been  a  cause  above  nature  producing  the  effects  in  nature, 
or  of  establishing  a  miraculous  interposition  in  the  course  of  things, 
all  proceed  on  defective  and  erroneous  views  of  causation,  and  at 
once  disappear  when  the  nature  of  our  conviction  is  inductively 
investigated  and  correctly  expressed.* 

*  It  is  not  to  my  present  purpose  to  enter  on  the  subject  of  miracles,  but  it  does  fall  iu 
with  the  topics  discussed  in  the  text  to  remark,  that  there  is  nothing  in  a  miracle  opposed 
to  any  intuition  of  the  mind, — certainly  nothing  opposed  to  our  intuition  as  to  cause. 
Hume,  the  sceptic,  takes  all  sorts  of  objections  to  miracles,  and  the  evidence  by  which 
they  are  supported,  but  he  does  not  maintain  that  a  miracle  is  impossible.  It  is  "  expe- 
rience," according  to  him,  "  which  assures  us  of  the  laws  of  nature"  {Essay  on  Miracles) ; 
and  I  hold  that  the  same  experience  shows  us  effects  in  nature  which  constrain  us,  accord- 
ing to  the  intuitive  law  of  causation,  to  argue  a  Power  above  nature,  which  Power  is  an 
adequate  cause  of  any  miracle  vvliich  may  be  attested  by  proper  evidence.  Brown  has  shown 
very  satisfactorily  that  a  miracle,  with  the  Divine  Power  as  its  cause,  is  not  inconsistent 
with  our  intuitive  belief  in  causation  {Cause  and  Efect,  note  E).  Ever  since  Fichte  pub- 
lished his  Versuch  einer  KH'.ik  aller  Ojfenbarung,  there  have  been  persons  in  Germany  who 
represent  it  as  impossible  fur  God  to  perform  a  miracle.  This  may  be  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  those  false  assumptions  regarding  our  knowing  only  self,  which  landed  Fichte  iu 
an  incongruous  pantheism,  in  which  he  at  one  time  represents  the  Ego  as  the  All-including 
God,  as  the  "moral  order;"  and  at  another  time  represents  God  as  the  All,  and  absorbing 
the  Ego.  But  it  can  plead  in  its  behalf  no  principle  in  the  constitution  of  man's  mind, — no 
principle  either  natural  or  necessary.  The  result  at  which  we  have  arrived  is,  that  the 
question  of  the  occurrence  of  miracles  is  to  be  determined  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  evidence. 

16 


BOOK  lY. 

MORAL  CONVICTIONS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  MOTIVE  AND  MORAL  POWERS. 

SECT.  I.— THE  APPETENCIES,  THE  WILL,  AND  THE  CONSCIENCE. 

The  relation  b(/tweeu  the  innate  principles,  or  the  fundamental 
laws  of  tlie  mind,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  faculties  of  the  mind, 
on  the  other,  has  seldom  been  properly  understood.  The  former 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  rules  of  the  operation  of  the  latter.  I  have 
in  the  first  three  Books  endeavoured  to  unfold  the  main  primary 
principles  regulating  those  faculties  which  have  been  called  the 
Understanding,  or  the  Intellectual  or  Gnostic  or  Cognitive  Powers  ; 
or,  better  still,  the  Cognitive  and  Contemplative,  so  as  to  embrace 
the  Imagination,  which  can  scarcely  be  called  a  Cognitive,  but  is 
certainly  a  Contemplative  Power.  But  in  all  classifications  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind  which  have  the  least  pretensions  to  complete- 
ness, there  has  been  a  recognition  of  another  class,  under  the  name 
of  the  Will,  or  the  Feelings,  or  the  Orective  or  Motive  Powers  ;  they 
may  perhaps  be  best  designated  as  the  Motive  and  Moral  Powers, 
so  as  to  embrace  unequivocally  the  functions  of  the  conscience. 
I  am  in  this  Chapter  to  take  a  glance  at  this  class  of  powers,  and 
afterwards  seek  to  ascertain  the  fundamental  principles  involved 
in  them.  They  are  at  least  three  in  number:  the  Appetencies, — 
including  the  Emotions  ;  the  Will ;  and  the  Conscience. 

I.  There  are  the   native  Appetencies  op  the  Mind  leading  to 
Emotions.      Man  is  so   constituted   that  he  is   capable  of   being 
(242) 


BOOK  IV.  ]       MOTIVE  AND  MORAL  POWERS.  243 

swayed  in  will,  aud  so  in  action,  by  certain  motives,  that  is,  by  the 
contemplation  of  certain  objects  or  ends,  while  others  do  not  in- 
fluence him.  It  would  serve  many  important  ends  to  have  a  classi- 
fication of  these,  that  is,  of  the  springs  of  human  will  and  action. 
To  endeavour  to  give  a  complete  and  exhaustive  list  of  them,  that 
is,  of  the  categories  of  man's  moral  nature,  would,  I  am  aware,  be 
quite  as  bold  an  effort  as  that  so  often  made  to  determine  the 
categories  of  the  understanding.  Such  a  classification  would  at 
the  b(;st  be  very  imperfect  in  the  first  instance.  But,  even  though 
only  provisionally  correct,  it  might  accomplish  some  useful  pur- 
poses. In  the  absence  of  any  arrangement  sanctioned  by  meta- 
physicians generally,  it  must  suffice  to  mention  here  some  of  the 
principal  motives  which  very  obviously  sway  the  will  and  impel 
to  action. 

1.  Mankind  are  evidently  inclined,  involuntarily  and  voluntarily, 
to  exercise  every  native  power, —  the  senses,  the  memory,  the 
imagination,  the  power  of  language,  the  various  rational  powers — 
such  as  abstraction,  comparison,  causality — the  emotional,  volun- 
tary, and  moral  capacities.  A  vast  portion  of  human  activity  pro- 
ceeds from  no  higher  and  from  no  lower  source  than  this.  As  the 
lamb  frisks,  and  the  colt  gambols,  and  as  the  child  is  in  perpetual 
rotation,  so  man's  internal  powers  are  for  ever  impelling  him  to 
exertion,  independent  altogether  of  any  external  object,  or  even  of 
any  further  internal  ends  to  be  gained. 

2.  Wliatever  is  contemplated  as  capable  of  securing  pleasure  is 
felt  to  be  desirable,  and  whatever  is  apprehended  as  likely  to  inflict 
pain  is  avoided.  This  is  so  very  obvious  a  swaying  power  with 
human  beings,  that  it  has  been  noticed,  and  commonly  greatly 
exaggerated,  in  every  account  which  has  been  given  of  man's  active 
and  moral  nature.  The  mistake  of  the  vulgar,  and  especially  of 
the  sensational  systems,  is  that  they  have  represented  pleasure  and 
pain  as  the  sole  contemplated  ends  by  which  man  is  or  can  be 
swayed.  It  is  our  object  in  these  paragraphs  to  sliow  that  man 
can  be  influenced  by  other  motives,  better  and  worse. 

3.  There  are  certain  appetencies  in  man,  bodily  and  mental, 
which  crave  for  gratification,  and  this  independent  of  the  pleasure 
to  be   secured   by   their   indulgence.     Of  this   description  arc  the 


244  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

appetites  of  hunger,  thirst,  and  sex,  and  the  mental  tendencies  to 
seek  for  knowledge,  esteem,  society,  power,  property.  These  appe- 
tencies may  connect  themselves  with  the  other  t,T0  classes  already 
specified,  but  still  they  are  different.  They  will  tend  to  act  as 
natural  inclinations,  but  still  they  look  towards  particular  external 
objects.  We  may  come  to  gratify  them  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure, 
but  in  the  first  instance  we  seek  the  objects  for  their  own  sakes, 
and  it  is  in  seeking  the  objects  we  obtain  gratification.  They 
operate  to  some  extent  in  the  breasts  of  all,  and  they  come  to  exer- 
cise a  fearfully  controlling  and  grasping  power  over  the  minds  of 
multitudes. 

4.  Man  is  impelled  by  an  inward  principle,  more  or  less  power- 
ful in  the  case  of  different  individuals,  and  varying  widely  in  the 
objects  desired,  to  seek  for  the  beautiful  in  inanimate  or  in  animate 
objects,  in  grand  or  lovely  scenes  in  nature,  in  statues,  paintings, 
buildings,  fine  composition  in  prose  or  poetry,  and  in  the  counte- 
nances or  forms  of  man  or  woman. 

5.  It  is  not  to  be  omitted  that  the  moral  power  in  man  is  not 
only  (as  I  hope  to  show)  a  knowing  and  judging  faculty  ;  it  has  a 
prompting  energy,  and  leads  us,  when  a  corrupt  will  does  not  inter- 
fere, to  such  acts  as  the  worship  of  God  and  beneficence  to  man, 
done  because  they  are  right. 

6.  Whatever  is  felt  to  be  appetible  for  ourselves  we  may  wish 
that  others  should  enjoy,  wliilc  we  may  desire  that  tliey  should  be 
preserved  from  all  that  is  inappetible,  such  as  restraint  and  pain 
and  sin.  Man  is  so  constituted  as  to  be  stirred  to  desire  and 
prompted  to  action  by  the  contemplation  of  other  beings  to  whom 
he  is  related,  such  as  God,  when  he  knows  Him,  and  his  fellow- 
men,  more  especially  certain  of  his  fellow-men,  such  as  his  country- 
men and  kindred,  and  those  who  have  bestowed  favours  upon  him. 
I  must  ever  set  myself  against  the  miserably  degrading  doctrine 
of  those  who  represent  man  as  utterly  selfish  in  his  constitution, 
and  capable  of  being  swayed  by  no  other  considerations  than  those 
which  promise  pleasurable  gratifications  to  be  realized  by  himself. 
He  may,  by  a  hardening  process  of  sin,  make  himself  thus  selfish, 
but  in  his  original  nature  he  is  capable  of  being  swayed  by  a  great 
number  and  variety  of  other  motives,  and  among  others  by  attacli- 


BOOK  IV.]      MOTIVE  AND   3I0BAL   POWERS.  245 

ments  to  man  as  man,  or  to  particular  men  or  women,  and  by  sym- 
pathy for  persons  in  trouble. 

In  whatever  way  we  may  classify  them,  these,  or  such  as  these, 
are  the  motives  by  which  man  is  naturally  swayed.  Upon  these 
native  and  primary  principles  of  action,  others,  acquired  and 
secondary,  come  to  be  grafted.  Thus  money,  not  originally  desired 
for  its  own  sake,  may  come  to  be  coveted  as  fitted  to  gratify  the 
love  of  property,  the  love  of  power,  or  the  love  of  pleasure.  Or,  a 
particular  fellow-man,  at  first  indifferent,  comes  to  be  avoided, 
because  he  seems  inclined  to  thwart  us  in  some  of  our  favourite 
ends,  such  as  the  acquisition  of  wealth  or  of  fame.  It  is  a  peculi- 
arity of  our  nature  that  these  secondary  principles  may  become 
primary  ones,  and  prompt  us  to  seek,  for  their  own  sakes,  objects 
wliicli  were  at  first  coveted  solely  because  they  tended  to  promote 
further  ends. 

The  appetencies,  native  and  acquired,  stir  up  Emotion,  which  is 
called  forth  by  an  apprehension  of  objects  as  fitted  to  gratify  or  to 
disappoint  these  appetencies.  Let  us  call  whatever  accords  with 
them  the  Appetible,  and  whatever  runs  counter  to  them  the  Inap- 
pctible ;  then  the  law  is  that  the  appetible,  when  in  prospect,  calls 
forth  hope,  and  when  realized,  joy ;  whereas  the  inappetible,  when 
in  prospect,  excites  fear,  and  when  realized,  sorrow.  It  is  always 
to  be  taken  into  account  that  the  emotive  susceptibility  is  naturally 
stronger  in  some  minds  than  in  others,  is  stronger  at  one  period  of 
life,  or  even  one  day  or  hour,  than  another ;  but  making  due  allow- 
ance for  this  variable  element,  the  intensity  of  feeling  is  determined 
by  tlie  strength  of  the  motive  principle,  its  native  strength  or  its 
acquired  strength,  and  by  the  extent  of  the  appetible  or  inappetible 
embraced  within  the  mental  apprehension  of  the  object  or  end  fitted 
to  gratify  or  disappoint  the  appetency.  There  are  thus  three  ele- 
ments determining  the  emotion,  and  these  varying  in  the  case  of 
different  individuals,  and  of  the  same  individual  at  different  times. 
There  is  tlic  emotional  susceptibility,  depending  largely  on  the  state 
of  the  brain  or  particular  organs  of  it.  There  is  the  mental  appe- 
tency, natural  or  acquired.  There  is  the  mental  apprehension  of 
an  object  or  event  as  tending  to  content  or  gratify  the  appetence. 
By  these   elements  we  can   explain  all  the  feelings,  and  much  of 


246  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

the  activity  ot  humanity.  Wc  have  here  the  key  to  unlock  a  door 
through  which  Ave  may  see  what  rules  the  passions  of  men  and 
women,  often  so  very  capricious,  and  apparently  contradictory. 
This  deep  affection,  long  cherished,  or  this  burst  of  sudden  anger 
or  joy  or  grief,  reveals  to  the  observant  eye  the  deep  moving  prin- 
ciple of  tlie  inner  soul. 

It  should  be  observed  that  while  the  mind  is  impelled  by  such 
appetencies  towards  certain  objects,  it  has  not  necessarily  before  it 
the  general  principle  by  which  it  is  actuated,  nor  indeed  a  general 
idea  of  any  description.  It  contemplates  an  individual  object  as 
about  to  give  it  pleasure,  or  about  to  add  to  its  power  or  fame,  and 
it  at  once  longs  for  it  without  generalizing  its  aim.  Here,  as  in 
other  cases  wliich  have  passed  under  our  notice,  the  mind  is 
actuated  by  principles  which  are  not  before  the  consciousness  as 
principles. 

The  emotions  stirred  up  Ijy  these  appetencies  are  characterized 
by  two  marked  features :  one  is  a  drawing  towards  the  object 
that  is  appetible,  and  a  drawing  away  from  what  is  inappetible  ; 
and  the  other  is  a  lively  excitement — whence  the  name  Emotions. 
Thus,  in  fear  we  have  an  apprehension  of  some  evil  as  about  to 
befall  us,  or  tliose  in  whom  we  feel  an  interest,  and  we  shrink  from 
the  object  ;  whereas,  in  hope,  we  have  an  idea  of  an  event  as  about 
to  bring  good,  and  we,  as  it  were,  reach  toward  it.  While  thus 
longing  or  shrinking,  the  mind  is  all  the  while  in  a  quickened 
and  moved  state. 

II.  There  is  the  Will.  The  powers  I  have  been  speaking  of 
rush  on  to  their  ends  instinctively  and  blindly.  The  native  power 
goes  on  to  action,  the  appetite  claims  indulgence,  the  dominant 
passion  embraces  its  object,  eacli  according  to  its  nature.  But 
these  activities  and  propensities  are  often  inconsistent  the  one  with 
the  other.  The  intellect  would  set  out  on  high  pursuits,  but  is 
opposed  by  some  grovelling  appetite,  or  the  man  would  wisli  to 
acquire  fame,  but,  in  doing  so,  finds  that  he  cannot  accumulate 
property  as  he  might  otherwise  do.  Is  man  condemned  to  be  the 
slave  of  these  appetencies,  yielding  to  the  one  which  happens  to 
assail  him,  or  obeying  the  strongest  when  they  are   competing  or 


BOOK  IT.]      3I0TIVE  AND  MORAL  POWERS.  247 

clashing  ?  It  is  probable  that  this  is  the  condition  of  the  brute 
creatures,  and  would  be  the  state  of  man  did  he  not  possess  a 
higher  power.     That  power  is  the  Will. 

Properly  speaking,  the  will  does  not  furnish  incitements,  induce- 
ments, or  motives  ;  these  come  from  the  appetencies  which  we  have 
just  been  considering.  It  is  the  province  of  the  Will,  seated 
above  them,  to  sanction  or  restrain  them  when  they  present  them- 
selves, and  to  decide  among  them  when  they  are  competing  with 
each  other  for  the  mastery.  We  have  seen  that  the  characteristic 
property  of  emotion  is  attachment  or  repugnance,  with  associated 
excitement.  The  distinguishing  quality  of  will  is  choice  or  rejec- 
tion. Inducements  being  held  out,  the  mind,  in  the  exercise  of 
will,  sanctions  or  refuses.  It  assumes  a  number  of  forms,  in  all  of 
whicli  there  is  the  element  of  choice.  If  the  object  is  present,  we 
positively  choose  it  or  adopt  it ;  if  the  object  is  absent,  we  wish 
for  it ;  if  it  is  to  be  obtained  by  some  exertion  on  our  part,  we 
form  a  resolution  to  take  the  steps  necessary  to  procure  it. 

III.  There  is  the  Conscience.  It  is  the  special  function  of  this 
power  to  say  when  a  particular  appetency  should  be  allowed  and 
when  it  should  be  restrained  ;  in  doing  so,  it  addresses  itself  to  the 
will.  The  conscience  thus  claims  to  be  above,  not  only  our  natural 
appetencies,  but  above  the  will,  which  ought  to  yield  as  soon  as 
the  decision  of  conscience  is  given  ;  not  that  it  can  set  itself  alto- 
gether above  nature,  not  that  it  should  set  itself  above  nature  ;  it 
is  its  office  to  sit  in  judgment  on  appetencies  which  are  natural  or 
may  be  acquired,  and  it  works  through  free  will  as  an  essential 
element  of  our  nature.  But,  as  Bishop  Butler  has  shown,  it  is  of 
the  nature  of  our  constitution  that  it  pronounces  judgments  for  the 
will  and  upon  the  appetencies.  Let  us  endeavour  to  unfold  the 
nature  of  this  moral  power.  It  will  be  seen  that,  though  not 
identical  with,  it  is  so  far  analogous  to  the  intellectual  powers. 

1.  The  conscience  is  of  the  nature  of  a  cognitive  power.  It  is 
analogous  in  this  respect  to  the  faculties  of  sense  and  self-conscious- 
ness. Not  that  it  makes  known  •  any  individual  object,  as  the 
senses  do  when  they  show  this  table  or  that  chair,  or  as  self- 
eonseiousncss  does,  when  it  discloses  self  in  a  particular  state,  say 


248  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

a?  nuising  or  as  hoping  :  it  reveals  to  us  merely  certain  qualities 
of  objects  otherwise  known,  that  is,  known  by  i)erception  and  self- 
consciousness  ;  it  lets  us  know,  for  example,  of  certain  voluntary 
states  of  ourselves  or  of  others,  that  they  are  good  or  that  they  are 
evil,  flaking  known  no  new  substance  or  independent  existence, 
it  does  reveal  to  us  a  quality  of  all  souls  possessed  of  intelligence 
and  free  will ;  it  was  this  property  of  the  conscience  that  was  seized 
l)y  Shaftesbury  and  by  Francis  Hutchcson,  when  they  called  this 
power  the  moral  sense.  The  phrase  was  adopted  by  them,  I  sus- 
pect, to  make  their  system  tally  witli  that  of  Locke,  who  admitted 
an  external  and  internal  sense,  to  which  they  now  added  a  moral 
sense.  It  was,  in  some  respects,  an  unfortunate  phrase,  as  it 
seemed  to  degrade  the  moral  power  in  man  to  the  rank  of  a  bodily 
faculty,  or  to  make  it  dependent  on  bodily  organization.  But  it  is 
fitted  to  bring  out  one  feature  of  man's  nature,  that  by  which  he 
is  able  to  detect  a  certain  quality  in  the  acts  of  all  intelligen. 
l)eings.' 

2.  There  are  beliefs  involved  in  the  exercise  of  the  moral  power. 
These  beliefs  are  very  closely  connected  with  the  cognitions,  from 
which  indeed  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  distinguish  them,  except 
for  certain  purposes  of  philosophic  accuracy.  The  phrase  "  moral 
cognitions"  might  bo  confined  to  those  mental  exercises  in  which 
the  action  which  we  pronounce  good  or  bad  is  our  own,  falling 
immediately  under  consciousness,  and  we  pronounce  it  to  be  good 
or  bad  ;  whereas  our  moral  beliefs  extend  much  further,  and  refer  to 
acts  not  immediately  under  the  introspective  power,  as  when  we 
believe  that  benevolence  is  good  everywhere,  and  that  God  is  good, 
and  has  been  good,  and  shall  be  good  to  all  eternity.  I  am  inclined 
to  regard  our  moral  cognitions  as  the  basis  of  our  moral  beliefs. 
We  seem  first  to  have  a  necessary  conviction  in  regard  to  the  moral 
nature  of  our  own  actions,  and  thence  we  arise  to  convictions  which 
look  to  m.oral  qualities,  whicli,  being  appreliended  by  us,  we  declare 
to  be  good  or  evil,  wherever  they  are  to  be  found,  and  whoever  may 
be  the  possessor. 

'  Soe  some  valuable  remarks  in  note  F,  appendcfl  to  Hansel's  Prolegomena  Logica, 
"  It  appears  that  a  power  of  discerning  right  and  wrong  in  individual  acts  must  be 
allowed  as  the  representative  basis,  without  which  no  system  of  Moral  Philosophy  is 
possible." 


BOOK  IV.]        3I0TIVE  AND  MORAL  POWERS.  249 

3.  Judgments  are  involved  in  the  exercise  of  this  moral  power. 
These  proceed  on  our  original  cognitions  and  beliefs.  Discerning 
in  certain  agents  moral  qualities,  we  can  discover  relations  involved 
in  the  comparison  of  these  qualities  one  with  another,  and  with 
other  objects  and  qualities.  Our  moral,  like  our  intellectual  cog- 
nitions  and  beliefs,  furnish  matter  for  innumerable  judgments. 
Thus,  in  looking  at  the  relation  in  which  man  stands  to  God,  we 
affirm  that  wo  ought  to  obey  the  Divine  commands.  Or,  looking 
to  a  certain  deed,  and  to  the  painful  consequences  to  which  it  has 
led.  we  say  the  sin  merits  the  suifering.  It  is  the  special  office  of 
ethical  science  to  generalize  and  express  the  cognitions,  beliefs,  and 
judgments  of  the  moral  power,  and  to  derive  rules  from  them  by 
which  to  judge  of  actions. 

4,  Our  apprehension  of  moral  good  and  evil  is  accompanied 
with  appetency  and  emotion.  The  conscience,  in  fact,  partakes  of 
the  nature  both  of  a  cognitive  and  a  motive  power  ;  it  knows  cer- 
tain qualities  in  objects,  and  as  it  recognizes  them,  it  looks  on  them 
as  appetible  or  inappetible,  and  is  moved  towards  them  or  away 
from  tliem.  Hence  the  conscience  is  not  only  a,  judge,  it  is  a  spring 
of  action,  and  prompts  us,  if  we  would  but  obey  it,  to  seek  certain 
ends,  and  carefully  to  avoid  others. 


SECT.  \l.— {SUPPLEMENTARY.)— O'fi  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

A  reference  is  liere  made  to  tliis  subject  mainly  with  the  view  of  showing 
that,  while  the  appreciation  of  beauty  is  a  native  feeling,  it  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  necessary  principle.  We  are  certainly  led  by  strong  natural  inclination  to 
contemplate  certain  objects  with  special  feelings  of  attachment  and  admiration. 
The  science  which  seeks  to  catch  and  formalize  these  feelings,  and  to  judge  bjs 
the  rules  thence  drawn  of  objects  in  nature  and  in  art,  has  been  called  Esthetics, 
l)ut  might  perhaps  be  more  appropriately  termed  Kalology,  or  Kallisophy,  that 
is,  the  science  of  the  Fair  or  Lovely.  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  we 
have  any  such  necessary  convictions  in  regard  to  beauty  as  we  have  in  regard  to 
certain  fundamental  intellectual  truths  and  moral  qualities.  Our  knowledge  and 
belief  regarding  objects  presented  to  sense  and  consciousness  amount  to  this, 
that  they  have  an  existence  independent  of  the  mind  contemplating  them,  and 
that  they  would  and  must  have  the  same  existence  to  all  minds  endowed  with 
the  capacity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  them.  Again,  in  pronouncing  certain 
judgments,  the  mind  declares  not  only  that  there  is  a  relation,  but  that  the  rela- 
tion is  necessary.  But,  in  looking  on  an  attractive  oljject,  while  led  to  delight 
in  it  as  lovely,  we  are  not  constrained  to  believe  that  it  must  be  beautiful,  inde 


250  MOBAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  n. 

pendont  of  our  feeling  regarding  it,  and  that  it  must  apj^ear  beautiful  to  all 
beings.  I  must  believe  that  the  sun  exists  as  an  extended  body,  independent 
of  the  structure  of  my  eye  or  mind,  and  that  it  would  be  apprehended  as  an  ex- 
tended body  by  any  inhabitant  of  Mars  or  Jupiter  endowed  with  the  capacity  to 
perceive  the  object.  I  must  believe  that  ingratitude  is  a  sin,  not  only  on  the 
earth,  but  everywhere,  in  the  planet  Saturn  or  the  star  Sinus,  in  heaven  or  in 
hell,  and  that  all  beings  endowed  with  moral  capacity  must  see  it  in  the  same 
light ;  but  I  am  not  necessitated  to  believe  that  the  objects  which  appear  beauti- 
ful to  me,  or  to  all  men,  have  a  beauty  independent  of  the  mind  that  contem- 
plates them,  and  that  all  other  minds,  or  even  that  all  minds  endowed  with  the 
sense  of  beauty,  must  view  them  in  precisely  the  same  light.  We  find,  in  fact, 
that  the  music  which  is  felt  by  some  to  be  so  pleasant  and  exciting,  has  no 
chaniis  whatever  to  others.  We  could  easily  enough  believe,  if  evidence  were 
furnished  to  us.  that  the  colours  which  aj)j)ear  so  lovely  to  our  eyes,  have  no 
attraction  whatever  to  the  inhabitants  of  another  planet.  Not  only  so,  we  can 
conceive  that  the  very  order  and  proportions  which  awaken  so  deep  an  interest 
in  our  minds,  might  be  contemj^lated  with  no  feeling  of  admiration  by  beings 
endowed  with  a  different  mental  constitution. 

At  the  same  time  it  should  be  acknowledged  that  there  seem  to  be  qualities 
■^hich  must  have  an  excellence  altc>getb.&r  independent  cf  the  mind  which  views 
them.  It  is  an  opinion  which  goes  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Plato,  and  has  ever 
since  been  widely  entertained,  that  beauty  of  forms  consists  in  some  sort  of  pro- 
portion or  harmony,!  which  may  admit  of  a  mathematical  expression  ;  and  later 
and  more  scientific  research  is  altogether  in  its  favour.  It  is  now  established 
that  complementary  colours,  that  is,  colom's  which  when  combined  make  up  the 
full  beam,  are  felt  to  be  beautiful  when  seen  simultaneously ;  that  is,  the  mind 
is  made  to  delight  in  the  unities  of  nature.  At  the  basis  of  music  there  are  cer- 
tain fixed  ratios ;  and  in  poetiy  of  eveiy  description  there  are  measures  and 
correspondencies.  Pythagoras  has  often  been  ridiculed  for  his  doctiine  of  the 
music  of  the  spheres ;  and  ^jrobably  his  views  were  sufliciently  mystical  and 
fanciful,  but  the  latest  science  shows  that  there  is  a  harmony  in  all  nature, — in 
its  forms,  its  forces,  and  its  motions.  The  higher  unorganized,  and  all  organized 
objects,  take  definite  forms  which  are  often  regulated  by  mathematical  laws. 
The  forces  of  nature  can  be  estimated  in  numbers,  and  light  and  heat  seem  to  go 
in  undulations,  or  at  least  by  intervals,  while  the  movements  of  the  great  bodies 
in  nature  are  periodical.^  Such  facts  as  these  seem  to  show  that,  at  the  basis  of 
beauty,  there  may  very  probably  be  piinciples  which  are  necessaiy,  eternal,  and 
altogether  independent  of  the  individual  mind,  or  even  of  the  general  mind  of 
humanity.  But  over  them  all  the  mind  seems  to  spread  a  colour  and  a  lustre 
which  we  cannot  regard  as  necessary,  and  v,^hich  may  not  be  universal ;  or  which, 
if  universal,  can  have  become  so  only  by  the  appointment  of  the  one  God,  who 
Himself  delights,  and  would  also  lead  us  to  delight,  in  the  unity  and  harmony 
which  run  through  all  His  works.  It  is  quite  possible  that,  so  far  as  there  are 
eternal  principles  lying  at  the  basis  of  certain  forms  of  beauty,  they  may*only 
be  modifications  of  the  eternal  principles  of  truth. 

•  See  fine  Platonic  speculations  in  M'Vicar,  On  the  Beautiful,  the  Picturesque,  the  Sublime 
and  the  Philosophy  of  the  Beautiful;  and  in  Blackie's  Beauty ,  ivith  Platd n  Doctrine  of  th« 
Beautiful;  as  well  as  in  Ruskin's  Modern  Painters,  Vol.  ii. 

"  The  harmonies  in  nature,  in  respect  of  Colour,  Number,  Form,  etc.,  are  illustrated  in 
Typical  Forms  and  Special  Ends  in  Creation. 


BOOK  IV.]        MOTIVE  AND  310 BAL  POWEBS.  251 

Other  kinds  of  ])eauty  ally  tliemselves  more  closely  with  the  morally  good. 
There  is  a  beauty  in  all  truly  virtuous  and  beneficent  actions  of  the  creature,  and, 
above  all,  of  the  Great  Creator.  Whatever  seems  to  proceed  from  love  or  from 
kindness,  such  as  peace  and  plenty  and  diffused  haj)piness,  is  apt  to  collect  a 
feeling  of  loveliness  around  it.  The  question  is  started,  May  not  the  principles 
which  underlie  these  forms  of  beauty  be  modifications  of  the  eternal  principles 
of  right  and  wrong  ? 

In  the  pages  of  all  writers  who  have  meditated  jjrofoundly  on  this  subject, 
•vvdll  be  found  such  utterances  as  these  : — "  The  beautiful  is  always  true  ;"  "  The 
beautiful  is  ever  good."  Alas  !  the  only  exception  to  this  last  maxim  is  to  be 
found  in  certain  human  beings,  in  which  guilt  has  destroyed  the  holy,  but  left  as 
yet,  and  for  a  time,  the  lovely,  which  however  will  in  due  time  lose  its  lustre. 
But  there  is  truth  involved  in  these  maxims,  and  I  have  sometimes  thought  that 
it  lies  in  this,  that  at  the  base  of  beauty  there  are  eternal  jjrincijjles,  modifica- 
tions of  the  true  and  the  good,  over  which  the  mind  casts  a  colour  and  a  clothing. 
The  God  who  made  us  hath  given  us  a  nature  which  throws  a  halo  and  a 
radiance  round  certain  kinds  of  everlasting  verities  and  moral  qualities,  with 
the  view  of  rendering  them  attractive,  and  gatheiing  om*  affections  about  them. 


252  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  n. 


CHAPTER   II. 

CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED   IN   THE  EXERCISES    OF 
CONSCIENCE.  ■ 

SECT.  I.— CONVICTIONS  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  MORAL  GOOD. 

Still  deeper  interests  are  involved  in  our  being  able  to  show 
that  there  is  an  immutable  and  eternal  morality,  than  even  in  our 
proving  that  there  is  immutable  and  eternal  truth.  But  after  hav- 
ing laboured  at  such  length  to  demonstrate  that  there  are  native 
and  necessary  principles  involved  in  the  intellectual  exercises  of 
the  mind,  it  will  not  be  needful  to  take  such  pains  to  show  that 
there  are  similar  convictions  of  a  moral  character.  The  mind  is 
led  by  its  very  nature  and  constitution  to  perceive  that  there  is 
an  indelible  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  just  as  there  is  an 
indelible  distinction  between  truth  and  falsehood.  It  finds  that 
every  substance  has  potency ;  that  the  species  implies  the  indi- 
vidual ;  but  it  also  declares  that  to  give  every  one  his  due  is  good, 
and  must  be  good,  and  that  it  is  wrong  in  children  to  neglect  their 
parents,  and  in  God's  creatures  to  forget  their  Creator.  Let  me 
endeavour  to  bring  out  and  express  some  of  the  principal  moral 
convictions  of  the  mind. 

I.  The  moral  quality  is  not  given  to  the  action  by  the  mind 
contemplating  it.  It  is  not  a  colour  thrown  over  the  object  by  the 
mental  eye  which  perceives  it,  but  is  a  real  quality  of  the  object, 
is  there  prior  to  its  l)cing  perceived,  and  is  in  the  object  whether  it 
is  perceived  or  not.  It  is  not  our  perception  and  approbation  that 
render  a  benevolent  action  good  ;  but  we  perceive  its  excellence 
and  approve  of  it  because  it  is  good.    It  follows  that — 

II.  Moral  good  is  moral  good  to  all  intelligences  so  high  in  the 


BOOK IV.]   CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE,  253 

scale  of  being  as  to  be  able  to  discern  it.  I  lay  down  this  position 
in'  order  to  guard  against  the  idea  that  moral  excellence  is  some- 
thing depending  on  the  peculiar  nature  of  man,  and  that  it  is 
allowable  to  suppose  that  there  may  be  intelligent  beings  in  other 
worlds  to  whom  virtue  does  not  appear  as  virtue.  Such  a  view 
seems  altogether  inconsistent  with  our  intuitive  convictions,  and 
would  effectually  undermine  the  foundations  of  morality.  It  is 
allowable  to  suppose  that  there  may  be  beings  in  other  worlds  who 
see  no  beauty  in  the  colours  or  in  the  shapes  and  proportions  which 
we  so  much  admire  ;  but  I  cannot  admit  that  there  are  any  intelli- 
gent and  responsible  beings  who  look  on  malevolence  as  a  virtue  or 
justice  as  a  sin.' 

III.  Moral  good  lays  an  obligation  on  us  to  attend  to  it.  This 
sense,  or  rather  conviction  of  obligation,  is  one  of  the  peculiarities, 
is  indeed  the  chief  peculiarity,  of  our  moral  perceptions.  Herein 
do  our  moral  convictions,  whether  of  the  nature  of  cognitions,  be- 
liefs, or  judgments,  differ  from  the  intellectual  convictions  which 
have  passed  under  our  notice  in  the  previous  parts  of  this  treatise. 
That  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest  between  two  points,  this  I  am 
constrained  to  decide  when  my  attention  is  called  to  the  subject, 
but  I  know  of  no  duty  thence  arising,  no  affection  which  I  should 
thereon  cherish,  no  action  which  I  ought  to  do.  But  when  I  am 
led  to  believe  that  there  is  a  good  God  who  made  me  and  upholds 
rae,  the  mind  declares  that  it  is  and  must  be  good  to  love  and 
obey  that  Being,  and  that  there  is  an  obligation  lying  on  me  to  do 
so.  This  is  expressed  by  such  phrases  as  Seov^  duty,  right,  ought, 
obligation,  the  convictions  embodied  in  which  cannot  be  accounted 
for  on  any  utilitarian  hypothesis.  It  is  shown  that  a  particular 
action  readily  within  our  power  will  tend  to  promote  the  happiness 
of  an  individual  or  of  society  ;  the  mind's  apprehension  of  this  is 
one  thing,  and  the  conviction  that  we  ought  to  do  it  is  an  entirely 
different  thing,  and  the  two  should  never  be  confounded. 


»  The  systems  which  represent  man's  moral  faculty  as  a  mere  feeling  or  sentiment,  such 
as  those  of  Adam  Smith,  of  Thomas  Brown,  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  are  chargeable  with 
two  defects  :—/'iV.s<,  the  theory  does  not  come  up  to  the  full  mental  facts,  which  embrace 
perception  or  knowledge,  and  judgment  as  well  as  emotion  ;  and  as  a  consequence, 
secondly,  they  make  it  appear  as  if  virtue  might  arise  from  the  peculiar  constitution  or 
temperament  of  the  race. 


254  MORAL   CONVICTIONS.  [paet  ii. 

But  the  ooiiscicnec  is  not  only  a  cognitive,  it  is  a  motive  power. 
This  conviction  of  obligation  distinguishes  it  at  once  from  the  other 
motive  as  it  does  from  tlie  other  cognitive  powers.  The  induce- 
ments addressed  to  man's  sense  of  duty  are  altogether  different 
from  those  addressed  to  the  other  appetencies  of  the  mind.  The 
love  of  pleasure,  of  fame,  and  of  activity,  do  all  hold  out  allure- 
ments to  man,  but  none  of  them  carries  with  it  a  binding  obliga- 
tion. When  we  follow  them  we  have  no  sense  of  merit ;  when  wc 
decline  them  we  have  no  sense  of  guilt.  It  is  different  when  our 
moral  convictions  say  that  a  particular  line  of  conduct  should  be 
pursued.  We  feel  now  not  only  that  we  may  do  it,  but  that  we 
should  do  it,  and  that  if  we  neglect  to  do  it,  we  are  guilty  of  sin. 
Hence  arises  the  great  ethical  doctrine,  expounded  in  so  masterly  a 
manner  by  Bishop  Butler,  that  the  conscience  is  supreme  ;  that  is, 
supreme  among  the  other  moving  powers.  Just  as  appetite  craves 
for  food,  and  the  love  of  society  for  social  intercourse,  so  the  con- 
science directs  to  certain  conduct,  but  with  this  difference,  that  it 
declares  itself  superior  to  the  other  springs  of  action.  It  carries 
with  it  its  authority,  and  asserts  its  claims,  and  is  prepared  to  de- 
nounce us  if  we  disregard  them. 

IV.  The  conscience  points  to  an  authority  above  itself.  It  is 
supreme  as  within  the  mind,  but  it  is  not  absolutely  supreme.  It 
claims  to  be  superior  to  all  other  motives,  such  as  the  love  of 
pleasure,  and  even  to  the  desire  of  intellectual  improvement ;  in- 
deed, it  seems  to  point  to  an  authority  above  the  mind  altogether. 
At  the  same  time,  it  does*not  seem  to  announce  what  is  the  nature 
of  the  object  which  it  would  prompt  us  to  seek  after.  In  this  re- 
spect it  is  like  some  of  our  intellectual  intuitions,  which  impel  us 
to  look  round  for  something  which  they  do  not  themselves  reveal. 
Thus,  intuitive  causality  constrains  us  when  we  discover  an  effect 
to  look  for  a  cause,  but  does  not  specify  what  the  cause  is.  In  like 
manner  our  moral  faculty  seems  to  me  to  point  to  some  power, 
principle,  or  being,  it  says  not  what,  above  itself.  It  does  not 
claim  for  itself  that  it  is  infallible,  that  it  is  sufficient,  that  it  is 
independent.  It  bows  to  something  which  has  authority  ;  it 
acknowledges  a  standard  which  is  and  must  be  right ;  it  looks  up 
for  sanction  and  guidance.     It  says  that  it  ought  to  yield  to  nci 


BOOKiY.]   CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE.  255 

earthly  power  ;  but  it  does  not  affirm  of  itself  that  it  can  never 
mistake,  and  that  there  is  no  authority  to  whicli  it  should  submit. 
On  the  contrary," it  often  finds  itself  in  difficulty  and  perplexity,  and 
feels  that  it  should  look  round  and  up  for  a  light,  and  it  is  sure 
that  there  is  such  a  light.  What  is  thus  unknown  to  the  intuition 
itself,  but  which,  notwithstanding,  it  is  ever  seeking,  is  revealed  by 
other  processes. 

V.  This  obligation,  when  we  are  led  to  believe  in  a  Supreme 
Being,  takes  the  form  of  law ;  and  we  believe  that  we  are  under 
law  to  God.  Our  moral  convictions  do  not,  so  it  seems  to  me,  of 
tliemselves  compel  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  God.  I  am 
persuaded,  however,  that  like  most  of  our  deeper  intuitions  (as  I 
hope  subsequently  to  show)  they  do  point  upwards  to  God.  And 
whenever  we  do,  by  combined  intuition  and  the  obvious  facts  of 
experience,  reach  God,  the  God  who  gave  us  all  our  endowments, 
and  therefore  our  moral  constitution,  the  mind  traces  up  the 
obligation  under  which  it  lies  to  Him.  The  expression  of  this 
inward  conviction  now  is,  not  that  we  are  under  obligation  to  an 
unknown  power,  but  under  law,  and  under  law  to  God.  It  is  thus 
indeed  we  get  the  peculiar  idea  of  moral  government  and  moral 
law,  not  from  sense,  nor  from  pleasure,  nor  from  utility,  but  froni 
conscience  constraining  us  to  feel  obligation,  and  combined  intui- 
tion and  experience  leading  us  to  trace  up  that  law  to  God  as  the 
Being  wlio  sanctions  it.  Till  this  object  is  readied,  our  moral 
intuition  is  felt  to  be  vague,  indefinite  ;  it  is  craving  for  something 
which  it  feels  to  be  wanting ;  but  when  God  is  found,  as  He 
cannot  fiiil  to  be  found  when  we  are  in  search  of  Him,  then  the 
intuition  is  satisfied,  and  ever  after  connects  the  law  with  the 
Lawgiver. 

VI.  ;Moral  good  is  perceived  as  having  desert,  as  appro vable  and 
rewardablc.  This,  too,  is  a  peculiar  idea,  derived  from  the  moral 
power  in  man,  and  cannot  have  been  derived  from,  as  it  cannot  be 
resolved  into,  any  modification  of  pleasure,  or  pain,  or  sensation  of 
any  kind.  We  are  convinced  in  regard  to  every  good  action  that 
it  is  meritorious ;  we  bestow  upon  it  our  approbation,  and  we  look 
for  encouragement  and  reward.  This  conviction  operates  with 
other  considerations  in  leading  us  to  look  to  God  as  the  Governor 


256  3I0EAL   CONVICTIONS.  [part  ir. 

of  this  world,  and  as  ready  to  uphold  and  defend  the  right.  There 
are  times  when  our  expectations  on  this  subject  arc  disappointed, 
and  when  we  ^ee  acts  of  moral  heroism  only  landing  him  who  per- 
forms them  in  opprobrium  and  suffering.  Still,  even  in  such  cases, 
our  instincts  keep  firm,  in  spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary  ; 
and  we  believe  that,  sooner  or  later,  in  this  world  or  the  world  to 
come,  tlie  deeds  will  meet  with  their  appropriate  reward. 

VII.  Moral  good  lies  in  the  region  of  the  will.  By  this  I  mean 
that  every  truly  virtuous  act  must  be  a  voluntary  one.  In  saying 
so,  I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  every  morally  good  act  must  be  a 
volition  contemplating  or  performing  some  outward  deed.  The 
will  of  man  exists  in  other  forms  than  in  a  resolution  to  act. 
Wherever  there  is  choice,  I  hold  that  there  is  will.  Whenever  I 
adopt  any  particular  object  presented,  or  prefer  any  one  object  to 
another,  there  is  choice.  There  is  also  the  exercise  of  choice,  and 
therefore  of  will,  in  all  cases  in  which  we  deliberately  reject  any 
object  or  proposal  made  to  us.  I  hold  then  that  there  is  choice — 
not  only  in  volition,  or  resolution,  or  the  final  determination  to 
act — there  is  choice  in  wish  or  in  voluntary  aversion.  When  we 
wish  that  our  friends  may  prosper  and  be  in  health,  that  God's 
name  may  be  hallowed,  there  is  will.  These  wishes  and  volitions 
and  rejections  may  unite  themselves  with  any  one  of  our  feelings, 
and  even  witli  our  intellectual  exercises.  Using  "  will"  in  this  wide 
sense,  I  say  that  it  is  the  region,  and  the  exclusive  region,  of  moral 
good.  It  is  in  voluntary  acts  that  the  conscience  discerns  a  moral 
quality,  and  it  is  upon  such  acts,  and  no  others,  that  it  pronounces 
its  decisions.  We  shall  see  forthwith  that  the  will,  in  all  its  proper 
acts,  is  free  ;  and  it  is  upon  acts  which  we  were  free  to  perform,  but 
from  which  also  we  were  free  to  abstain,  that  all  the  judgments  of 
conscience  are  declared. 

YIII.  Moral  Good  is  a  quality  of  certain  actions  proceeding 
from  Free  Will.  I  have  been  urging  that  moral  good  is  not  a 
creation  of  the  mind  when  contemplating  actions  or  affections,  but 
that  it  has  an  actual  existence.  But  let  us  understand  what  is  the 
precise  nature  of  the  reality.  In  order  to  express  the  reality,  some 
are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  morality  has  an  objective  and  not 
a  mere   subjective   existence.     But   this   language   is   not  fitted  to 


BOOK  IV.]  CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE.  257 

bring  out  the  full  trutli,  and  may  leave  an  erroneous  impression, 
as  if  moral  excellence  had  an  existence  as  a  separate  object,  like  a 
stone  or  a  mountain.  It  has  an  existence,  but  merely  as  a  quality 
of  free  acts  of  intelligent  beings. 

IX.  The  moral  quality  of  action  cannot  be  resolved  into  any- 
thing simpler.  The  mind  discerns  it  at  once,  as  the  eye  sees  a 
surface,  and  the  muscular  sense  feels  pressure.  If  any  man  asks  us, 
"What  is  extension  ?  we  bid  him  exercise  his  bodily  senses.  If  any 
man  asks  us,  Wliat  is  virtue  ?  I  bid  him  exercise  his  conscience 
in  looking  at  a  good  action.  No  attempt  should  be  made  to  give 
a  positive  definition  of  virtue.  Any  proffered  definition  will  either 
be  erroneous,  or  it  will  be  a  mere  identical  proposition.  If  we  say 
that  virtue  consists  -in  happiness,  or  in  utility,  or  in  beneficial 
tendency,  all  such  accounts  are  utterly  defective,  for  they  leave 
out  the  main  elements,  the  obligation,  the  imperativeness  of  moral 
law,  the  desert,  the  approvableness,  the  rewardableness.  If  we 
introduce  such  phrases  as  the  following,  and  say  that  virtue  is 
binding,  that  it  is  right,  good  ;  we  are,  after  all,  only  saying  that 
virtue  is  virtue.  All  that  can  be  done  by  moral  science  on  this 
particular  point  is,  to  exhibit  fully  the  distinctive  features,  so  that 
the  conscience  may  recognize  them,  to  bring  out  the  law  or  prin- 
ciple, and  embody  it  in  suitable  expressions. 

SECT.  II.— ON  SIN  AND  ERROR. 

I  have  been  arguing  tliat  our  intellectual  and  moral  intuitions  are 
all  necessary  and  universal.  This  doctrine,  however,  must  not  be  so 
stated  as  to  imply  that  it  is  impossible  for  mant  o  fall  into  error,  or 
for  the  conscience  to  come. to  a  false  decision,  or  for  human  beings 
to  commit  sin. 

That  men  do,  in  fact,  fall  into  error,  is  evident  from  this  single 
circumstance,  that  scarcely  two  persons  can  be  brouglit  to  accord 
in  opinion,  even  on  points  of  importance.  In  regard,  indeed,  to 
necessary  truths,  there  are  certain  restrictions  laid  on  tlie  mind. 
No  man  who  considers  the  subject  can  1)C  made  to  believe  that 
two  straight  lines  will  enclose  a  space.  Still,  even  in  regard  to 
such  truths,  the  mind  has  a  capacity  of  ignorance  and  of  error  ; 
17 


258  MOBAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

it  inav  refuse  to  considcv  tlicm,  or,  mistaking  their  nature,  it  may 
make  statements  inconsistent  with  them  without  knowing  it. 
Those  who  have  gone  through  the  demonstrations  of  Euclid  are 
constrained  to  believe  the  truth  of  every  proposition,  but  the  truths 
have  never  so  much  as  been  presented  to  the  minds  of  the  great 
majority  of  mankind,  and  many  persons  might  easily  be  persuaded 
that  tlie  angles  of  certain  triangles  are  equal  to  less  or  to  more 
than  two  right  angles.  But  whatever  the  restrictions  laid  on  our 
liability  to  error  in  necessary  truth,  there  seem  to  be  no  limits  to 
man's  exposure  to  mistakes  in  other  matters.  There  is  boundless 
room  for  them  in  all  conclusions  which  are  dependent  on  expe- 
riential evidence,  especially  when  the  proof  is  of  a  cumulative 
character.  In  all  such  matters  the  mind  may  refuse  to  look  at 
tlie  probation,  or  it  may  take  only  what  is  favourable  to  one  side, 
and  may  arrive  at  most  erroneous  and  preposterous  results.  This 
liability  to  error  is  apt  to  appear  in  all  affairs  in  which  we  are 
under  the  influence  of  pride  or  party  spirit,  or  a  biassed  and  preju- 
diced disposition  ;  in  short,  wherever  there  is  moral  evil  swaying 
the  will,  and  leading  it  to  look  on  evidence  in  a  partial  spirit.  If 
I  were  immediately  cognizant  of  the  heart  of  a  good  man,  and 
could  see  the  springs  that  move  him  to  benevolence  and  self- 
sacrifice,  I  should  be  constrained  to  approve  of  him  ;  but  I  may  be 
prepossessed  against  him,  and  I  twist  and  torture  facts  till  I  bring 
myself  to  believe  that  he.  is  doing  all  this  from  a  deep  designing 
selfishness.  The  topic  does  not  come  within  my  proper  scope,  but 
I  cannot  keep  from  giving  it,  as  my  decided  conviction,  that  while 
ignorance  may  arise  from  the  finite  nature  of  our  faculties,  and 
from  a  limited  means  of  knowledge,  positive  error  does  in  every 
case  proceed  directly  or  indirectly  from  a  corrupted  will,  leading 
us  to  pronounce  a  hasty  judgment  without  evidence,  or  to  seek 
partial  evidence  on  the  side  to  which  our  inclinations  lean.  A 
thoroughly  pure  and  candid  will  would,  in  my  opinion,  preserve  man, 
even  with  his  present  limited  faculties,  not  indeed  from  ignorance 
on  many  points,  but  from  all  possibility  of  positive  mistakes. 

But  the  question  may  be  asked,  how  is  the  existence  of  sin,  and 
of  wrong  decisions  of  the  conscience,  consistent  with  the  necessity 
which  attaches  to  our  moral  convictions  ?    The  difficulty  can  easily 


BOOK  IV.]  CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE.   259 

'  be  removed  so  far  as  the  existence  of  sin  is  concerned  ;  for  sin 
must  ever  proceed  from  the  region  of  the  will,  which  is  free  to  do 
good,  but  also  free  to  do  evil.  It  may  be  necessary  for  the  con- 
science to  decide  in  a  certain  manner,  but  it  is  not  necessary  that 
the  will  should  do  what  the  conscience  commands.  And  it  is  to 
the  influence  exercised  by  a  disobedient  will  upon  the  conscience 
that  I  attribute  all  the  errors  in  its  decisions.  In  whatever  way 
we  may  reconcile  them,  these  two  facts  can  each  be  established  on 
abundant  evidence  :  the  one,  that  in  the  primitive  exercises  of  con- 
science there  is  a  conviction  of  necessity ;  the  other,  that  the  con- 
science is  liable  to  manifold  perversions.  Care  must  be  taken  not 
to  state  the  two  so  as  to  make  the  one  appear  to  be  inconsistent  with 
the  other  ;  both  can  be  so  enunciated  as  to  make  all  seeming  contra- 
diction vanish.  As  to  the  exact  nature  of  the  necessity  of  convic- 
tion, and  the  ground  which  it  covers,  this  is  to  be  determined,  like 
its  existence,  by  an  observation  of  the  conviction  itself.  If  we  look 
directly  and  fairly  at  moral  excellence,  the  mind  must  declare  it  to 
be  good.  But  then,  first,  the  mind  may  refuse  to  look  at  it  at  all, 
and,  secondly,  it  may  not  regard  it  in  the  right  light.  If  we  look 
upon  the  living  and  the  true  God  in  the  proper  aspect,  we  must 
acknowledge  that  we  owe  Him  love  and  obedience ;  but  then  we 
may  refuse  to  look  upon  Him,  we  may  contrive  to  live  without  God, 
and  God  ma}^  not  be  in  all  our  thoughts  ;  or  we  may  fashion  to 
ourselves  a  Deity  with  a  degraded  nature,  making  him  one  alto- 
gether like  unto  ourselves,  and  then  the  proper  awe  and  affection 
will  no  longer  rise  in  our  Ijosoms. 

It  is  to  be  taken  into  account  that,  while  our  decisions  upon  the 
acts  presented  may  be  intuitively  certain,  yet  that  the  acts  are  not 
intuitively  presented,  and  may  be  very  inaccurately  presented.  The 
conscience,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  is  a  reflex  faculty,  judging  of 
objects  presented  to  it  by  the  other  powers,  and  the  representa- 
tion given  it  may  be  incorrect.  The  liability  to  deception  and  per- 
version is  increased  by  the  circumstance  that  tlic  states  of  mind 
with  which  our  voluntary  acts  are  mixed  up  arc  of  a  very  com- 
plicated character.  There  is  room  in  this  way  for  giving  a  wrong 
account  of  our  actual  state  of  mind  at  any  given  moment.  I  con- 
tribute a  sum  of  money  to  relieve  a  person  in  distress  ;  I  may  do 


260  3I0BAL   CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

so  from  very  mixed  or  doubtful  motives ;  but  I  am  naturally  led 
by  self-love  to  look  on  the  motive  as  good,  and  then  I  clierisli  a 
feeling  of  self-approbation,  in  which  I  should  by  no  means  have 
been  justified  had  I  taken  a  searching  view  of  the  whole  mental 
state.  Again,  I  find  a  neighbour  doing  the  very  same  act,  and  I 
am  led  by  jealousy  to  attribute  selfish  motives  to  him,  and  I  con- 
demn him  in  a  judgment  which  may  be  equally  unwarranted.  By 
such  seductions  as  these  the  mind  may  become  utterly  perverted 
in  the  representations  which  it  gives  or  receives,  and  in  the  conse- 
quent moral  judgments  which  it  pronounces.  In  the  case  of  these 
perjrersious  of  the  conscience,  as  in  the  case  of  the  errors  of  the 
understanding  (as  we  have  previously  seen),  the  evil  is  to  be  traced 
to  the  will  refusing  to  give  obedience  to  its  proper  law,  and  conjur- 
ing up  a  series  of  deceptions  to  excuse  and  defend  itself  The  intui- 
tion is  after  all  there,  but  it  is  difficult  in  a  mind  perverted  by  a 
corrupt  and  prejudiced  will  to  put  it  in  a  position  to  act  aright.  In 
order  to  do  this  it  may  be  needful  to  have  a  Divine  Law  revealed, 
and  this  applied  by  a  teacliing  and  quickening  Spirit  from  above. 

We  are  already  in  the  heart  of  the  subject  of  Sin,  a  topic  which 
academic  moralists  studiously  avoid,  but  which  must  be  carefully 
looked  at  by  those  who  would  give  a  correct  account  of  our  moral 
constitution.  In  referring  to  it  here,  I  do  not  profess  to  be  able  to 
give  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  sin  under  the  government  of 
God,  whose  power  is  almighty,  and  who  shows  that  He  hates  sin. 
This  seems  to  be  a  mystery  whicli  human  reason  cannot  clear  up. 
The  topic  certainly  does  not  fall  within  ti^e  scope  of  our  present 
investigation.  I  have  here  simply  to  consider  sin  in  its  reference 
to  our  moral  convictions. 

I.  The  conscience  declares  that  sin  is  a  reality.  It  is  a  reality 
of  the  very  same  description  as  moral  good.  It  is  not  a  separate 
entity,  like  a  plant  or  an  animal,  but  it  is  a  quality  of  certain  volun- 
tarv  acts.  I  lay  down  this  position  in  opposition  to  those  who 
would  represent  sin  as  a  mere  privation  or  a  negation.  I  never 
can  brino-  myself  to  believe  tliat  deceit  and  envy  and  malice  and 
ungodliness  and  lust  are  merely  the  absence  of  certain  qualities  ; 
they  imply  the  presence  of  real  qualities  in  the  will  of  those  who 
cherish  tlie  affections  and  commit  the  deeds. 


BOOKiY.]  CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIEXCE.  261 

II.  Sin  is  a  quality  of  voluotarj  acts.  It  always  resides  in  some 
mental  affection  or  act  in  wliicli  there  is  tlie  exercise  of  free  will. 
The  guilt  of  the  sin  thus  always  lies  with  him  who  commits  it. 
He  cannot  throw  the  blame  on  any  other,  for  he  has  himself  given 
his  consent  to  it.  Others  may  have  seduced  him  into  it,  and  in 
that  case  the  criminality  of  having  tempted  him  lies  with  them  ; 
and  then  the  sin  of  having  yielded  to  the  temptation,  and  having 
done  the  wicked  deed,  lies  with  himself — he  can  devolve  it  on 
no  other. 

III.  Our  moral  convictions  declare  that  sin  is  of  evil  desert, 
condemnablo,  punishable.  This  conviction  is  of  precisely  an 
opposite  character  to  that  which  we  entertain  in  regard  to  good 
affection  and  action.  We  declare  the  sin  to  have  in  itself  evil 
desert ;  we  condemn  it  in  consequence,  and  we  say  of  it,  that  it 
should  be  discouraged,  nay,  punished.  The  very  ideas,  so  full  of 
meaning,  involved  in  these  mental  convictions,  are  native,  original, 
and  necessary.  We  cannot  get  them  from  mere  sensations  of  pleas- 
ure or  pain,  or  from  any  intellectual  operation  whatever  ;  and  yet 
we  arc  constrained  to  take  this  view  of  sin  wherever  it  is  pressed 
fairly  upon  our  notice.  It  is  this  conviction  that  stirs  up  and 
keeps  alive  a  sense  of  guilt  and  apprehension  of  punishment  in  the 
breast  of  every  sinner.  It  is  found  even  among  children,  and 
among  the  rudest  and  most  ignorant  savages,  who  are  urged  thereby 
to  try  some  means  of  avoiding  or  averting  the  wrath  of  God,  and 
are  prepared  in  consequence  to  listen  to  the  parent,  or  teacher, 
or  missionary,  when  he  speaks  of  the  desert  of  sin,  and  points  to  a 
Saviour  who  suffered  in  our  room  and  stead,  and  so  made  reconcilia- 
tion for  transgressors. 

SECT.   III.-RELATIOX  OF  MORAL  GOOD   AND  HAPPINESS. 

These  two  have  a  number  of  points  of  connexion  and  corre- 
spondence. Much  of  moral  good  consists  in  the  voluntary  promo- 
tion of  happiness,  and  the  diminution  of  pain  in  a  world  in  which 
there  is  sucli  a  liability  to  suffering.  A  very  large  number  of 
human  virtues,  and  of  vices  too,  take  their  origin  from  man's  capa- 
city of  pleasure  and  pain  ;  and  in  a  state  of  things  in  which  there 


202  3I0BAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

Avas  no  possibility  of  increasing  felicity,  or  removing  misery,  many 
of  this  world's  virtues  would  altogether  disappear.  Still  the  two, 
while  they  have  many  interesting  points  of  affniity,  are  not  to  be 
identified.  In  particular,  we  are  not  to  resolve  virtue  into  a  mere 
tendency  to  promote  the  pleasure  of  the  individual  or  happiness  of 
the  race.  There  seem  to  me  to  be  certain  great  truths  which  the 
mind  perceives  at  once,  in  regard  to  the  connexion  of  the  two. 

I.  The  good  is  good  altogether  independent  of  the  pleasure  it 
may  bring.  There  is  a  good  which  does  not  immediately  contem- 
plate the  production  of  Iiappiness.  Such,  for  example,  are  love  to 
God,  the  glorifying  of  God,  and  the  hallowing  of  His  name  :  these 
have  no  respect,  in  our  entertaining  and  cherishing  them,  to  an 
augmentation  of  the  Divine  felicity.  No  doubt  such  an  act  or 
spirit  may,  by  reflexion  of  light,  tend  to  brighten  our  own  felicity; 
but  this  is  an  indirect  effect,  which  follows  only  where  we  cherish 
the  temper  and  perform  the  corresponding  work  in  the  idea  that  it 
is  right.  We  do  deeds  of  justice  to  the  distant,  to  the  departed, 
and  the  dead,  who  never  may  be  conscious  of  what  we  have  per- 
formed. Even  in  regard  to  services  performed  with  the  view  of 
promoting  the  happiness  of  the  individual,  or  of  the  community, 
we  are  made  to  feel  that,  if  happiness  be  good,  the  benevolence 
which  leads  us  to  sock  the  happiness  of  others  is  still  better,  is 
alone  morally  good.  In  all  cases  the  conscience  constrains  us  to 
decide  that  virtue  is  good,  whether  it  does  or  does  not  contemplate 
the  production  of  pleasure. 

II.  Our  moral  constitution  declares  that  we  ought  to  promote 
the  happiness  of  all  who  are  susceptible  of  happiness.  The  only 
plausible  form  of  the  utilitarian  theory  of  morals  is  that  elaborated 
by  Bentham,  who  says  that  we  ought  to  promote  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  numl)er.  But  why  ought  we  to  do  so  ? 
Whence  get  we  the  should,  the  ohUgation,  the  duty  ?  Why  should 
I  seek  the  happiness  of  any  other  being  than  myself?  why  the 
happiness  of  a  great  number,  or  of  the  greatest  number  ?  wdiy  the 
happiness  even  of  any  one  individual  beyond  the  unit  of  self?  If 
the  advocates  of  the  "  greatest  happiness"  principle  will  only 
answer  this  question  thoroughly,  they  must  call  in  a  moral  prin- 
ciplO)  or   take  refuge  in  a  system   against  which  our  whole  nature 


BOOK  IT.]   CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE.  2G3 

rebels,  in  a  theory  whicli  says  that  we  are  not  required  to  do  more 
than  look  after  our  own  gratifications.  The  very  advocates  of  the 
greatest  happiness  theory  are  thus  constrained,  in  consistency  with 
their  view,  to  call  in  an  ethical  principle,  and  this  will  be  found, 
if  they  examine  it,  to  require  more  from  man  than  that  he  should 
further  the  felicity  of  others.'  But  while  it  covers  vastly  more 
ground,  it  certainly  includes  this,  that  we  are  bound,  as  much  as 
in  us  lies,  to  promote  the  welfare  of  all  Avho  are  capable  of  having 
their  misery  alleviated  or  their  felicity  enhanced. 

III.  Our  moral  convictions  affirm  that  moral  good  should  meet 
with  happiness.  They  seem  to  declare  that  this  is  in  itself  appro- 
priate and  good  ;  and  when  we  are  led  to  believe  in  the  existence 
of  a  good  God,  we  are  sure  that  He  will  seek  to  secure  this  end. 
Experience,  no  doubt,  shows  many  things  in  seeming  opposition  to 
this,  shows  many  crushed  with  misfortune  and  wrung  with  agony, 
who  are  far  more  virtuous  than  those  who  are  in  the  enjoyment 
of  health   and  prosperity.      But   our  inward   convictions  guide  us 

1  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  gives  up  Paley  as  an  expounder  of  utilitarianism  {DlsscHatwns,  Vol.  ii. 
p.  460),  and  allows,  as  to  Bentham,  "that  there  were  large  deficieucies  and  hiatuses  in 
his  scheme  of  human  nature"  (p.  4G2).  To  whom  then  are  we  to  look,  if  we  would 
examine  a  system  which  assumes  such  different  shapes;  which  now  takes  the  form  of 
a  selfish  system  whose  principle  is  that  every  man  should  seek  his  own  happiness,  now 
the  form  of  a  benevolent  system  which  says  that  a  mau  should  promote  the  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number?  In  the  first  of  these  forms  it  is  at  once  set  aside  by  an  appeal 
to  our  nature,  and  to  feelings  which  Mr.  Mill  admits  to  "be  in  our  nature.  In  the  second 
of  these  forms,  that  taken  by  Bentham  and  Mill,  there  is  a  principle  of  intuitive  morals 
surreptitiously  admitted,  that  we  should  look  to  the  happiness  of  others  as  well  as  our 
own.  Mr.  Mill  says,  "The  matter  in  debate  is  what  is  right,— not  whether  what  is 
right  ought  to  bo  "done"  (p.  400).  This  is  not  a  full  or  accurate  account  of  the  matter 
in  debated  One  question  in  debate  is,  Can  the  utilitarian  theory  account  for  our  convic- 
tion  as  to  right  and  wrong,  merit  and  guilt?  I  hold  that  it  cannot.  The  higher  class 
of  utilitarians  seem  to  trace  these  convictions  to  the  association  of  ideas  proceeding  on 
our  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Thus  Mr.  Mill  says  (Vol.  i.  p.  137),  "The  idea  of 
the  pain  of  another  is  naturally  painful;  the  idea  of  the  pleasure  of  another  is  naturally 
pleasurable.  From  this  fact  in  our  natural  constitution,  all  our  affections,  both  of  love 
and  aversion,  towards  human  beings,  in  so  far  as  they  are  different  from  those  we  enter- 
tain towards  mere  inanimate  objects  which  are  pleasant  or  disagreeable  to  us,  are  held 
by  the  best  teachers  of  the  theory  of  utility  to  originate.  In  this,  the  unselfish  part  of 
our  nature,  lies  a  foundation,  even  independently  of  inculcation  from  without,  for  the 
generation  of  moral  feelings."  Let  it  be  observed  that  this  makes  the  very  unselfish  part 
of  our  nature  stand  on  a  selfish  basis.  "The  idea  of  the  pleasure  of  another  is  naturally 
pleasurable,"  that  is,- to  ourselves.  I  hold  that  we  are  led  to  love  our  fellow-creatures 
independently  of  its  being  pleasant  to  ourselves;  and  Uiat  it  is  when  we  love  them  that 
the  afiection  is  found  to  be  pleasant,  by  the  appointment  of  the  Author  of  our  constitu- 
tion, who  thus  prompts  us  to  benevolence,  and  rewards  us  for  cherishing  it.  The  theory 
does  not  account  for  our  benevolent  feelings,  and  it  fails  still  more  when  it  would 
account  for  our  moral  convictions.  I  admit  that  it  might  give  some  explanation  of  cer- 
tain accompaniments,  but  it  can  give  no  account  of  the  conviction  of  "  ought,"  "  obliga- 


2G4  MOBAL   CONVICTIONS.  [paet  ii. 

to  the  right  conclusions  in  spite  of  these  apparently  contradictory 
results  of  outward  observation.  Tliey  lead  us  to  believe  that  they 
Avho  are  thus  afflicted  are  after  all  suffering  no  injustice,  inasmuch 
as  they  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and  to  expect  that  the  wicked 
will  not  be  allowed  to  pass  unpunished.  And  since  we  do  not  dis- 
cover a  full  retribution  in  this  world,  they  lead  us  to  look  forward 
to  a  day  of  judgment,  in  which  all  the  inequalities  and  seeming 
incongruities  of  this  present  dispensation  will  be  rectified  in  ap- 
pearance as  well  as  in  reality,  and  the  justice  of  God's  moral  govern- 
ment fully  vindicated. 

IV.  Our  moral  convictions  declare  that  sin  merits  pain  as  a 
punishment.  There  is  as  close  a  connexion  between  sin  and  pain 
as  there  is  between  "^-irtue  and  happiness.  There  may  indeed  be 
happiness,  and  there  may  be  suffering,  where  there  is  neither  virtue 
nor  the  opposite,  as,  for  example,  among  the  brute  creation  •  but 
we  decide  tliat,  wherever  there  is  virtue,  it  merits  happiness,  and 
wherever  there  is  sin,  that  it  deserves  suffering,  and  we  are  led  to 

tion,"  "duty,"  "merit,"  "desert,"  "guilt."  A  second  question  in  debate  is,  Can  the 
utilitarian  show  that  anything  is  "right?"  that  there  is  truly  anything  such  that  it 
"ought  to  be  done?"  Suppose  some  sensationalist  or  sceptic  were  to  maintain,  as 
against  Uie  utilitarian,  that  he  was  not  bound  to  promote  this  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number,  how  would  the  advocate  of  the  greatest  happiness  principle  reply  to  him  ?  Con- 
sistently, he  could  appeal  only  to  these  personal  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  ;  and  if  he 
appealed  to  anything  deeper,  it  must  be  to  the  very  moral  principle  whose  existence  he 
denies.  There  is  a  tfdrd  question  in  debate,  which  will  be  more  easily  determined  after 
we  have  settled  the  other  two.  For  when  it  is  shown  that  man  has  convictions  as  to 
moral  good  and  evil,  and  that  these  require  him  to  do  certain  acts  and  abstain  from 
others,  we  may  he  the  better  prepared  to  admit,  as  lo  certain  of  these  acts,  that  they  do 
not  contemplate  the  promotion  of  happiness.  Thus,  to  love  God  is  good,  and  to  refuse 
to  any  one  his  due  affection  and  gratitude  for  favours  seems  to  be  evil,  independently 
of  the  happiness  of  the  creature  or  Creator  being  thereby  augmented  or  diminished.  A 
fourth  question  is,  Does  utility  aiford  a  good  test  and  measure  of  virtue  and  vice?  It  is 
foreign  to  the  scope  of  this  treatise  to  enter  on  this  question,  but  I  may  remark  that 
the  ultimate  appeal  to  "  ought"  and  "duty"  being  taken  away,  and  the  appeal,  in  the 
last  resource,  being  to  pleasure  and  pain,  utilitarianism  will  not  train  men  to  deeds  of 
self-sacrifice,  and  those  who  have  embraced  it  will  ever  be  tempted  to  give  way  on  great 
emergencies,  and  to  yield  and  equivocate  when  they  should  at  all  hazards  resist  the 
evil.  And  it  has  been  shown  again  and  again,  that  it  is  beyond  the  capacity  of  man  to 
foresee  the  results  of  acts,  or  even  to  discern  the  tendency  of  certain  acts  done  in  compli- 
cated circumstances.  But,  omitting  this,  it  is  to  my  present  purpose  to  call  on  my  readers 
to  notice  that  the  theory  of  an  independent  morality,  and  of  moral  conviction,  admits  and 
embraces  all  that  is  true  in  utilitarianism.  It  atfirms  that  we  oiuiM  to  promote  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number;  and  in  regard  to  all  questions  bearing  on  happiness, 
the  conscience  requires  us  to  weigh  consequences,  and  to  look  to  long  issues  and  re- 
sults. I  may  here  mention  that  I  have  examined,  in  the  Supplement  to  an  edition 
of  Stewart's  Oullincs  of  Moral  Science,  Mr.  Mill's  defence  of  his  system  in  his  Utili- 
tarianism. 


BOOK  IV.]  CONVICTIONS  INVOLVED  IN  CONSCIENCE.  26o 

anticipate  tliat  tlie  proper  consequences  will  follow  under  the 
government  of  a  good  and  a  lioly  God.  But  as  the  intellectual 
intuition  of  causation,  while  it  constrains  us  to  look  for  a  cause, 
does  not  make  known  the  precise  cause,  so  our  moral  conviction  of 
merit,  while  it  leads  us  to  look  for  the  punishment  of  sin,  does  not 
specify  where,  or  when,  or  how  the  penalty  is  to  be  inflicted :  all 
that  it  intimates  is  that  it  should  and  shall  come.  This  conviction 
keeps  alive  in  the  breasts  of  the  wicked,  at  least  an  occasional  fear 
of  punishment,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  outward  prosperity, 
and  points  very  emphatically,  if  not  very  distinctly,  to  a  day  of 
judgment  and  of  righteous  retribution.  But  as  this  instinct  does 
not  supply  the  object,  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  wrong  one  may 
be  presented  by  the  baser  fears  of  the  heart,  or  by  a  degraded 
superstition,  and  the  final  judgment  may  be  thought  of  as  a  petty 
assize,  and  the  judge  be  regarded  as  gratifying  a  personal  revenge, 
and  heaven  be  contemplated  as  an  elysium  of  sensual  joys,  and 
I'.ell  as  a  place  of  vulgar  torture.  Still  the  conviction  does  demand 
its  object,  and  when  the  moral  sense  is  refined,  it  feels  that  the 
account  given  in  Scripture  of  a  judgment  day,  and  of  a  heaven  of 
light,  and  a  hell  of  darkness,  is  in  thorough  correspondence  with 
the  intuition  which  Cod  has  planted  in  our  mental  constitution. 

But  in  contemplating  and  in  harmonizing  such  truths  as  these, 
Ethical  science  finds  itself  in  difGcultics  :  it  starts  questions  which 
it  cannot  answer  ;  it  raises  doubts  which  it  cannot  dispel.  We  see, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  God  will  be  led  to  punish  sin,  that  He  "  will 
by  no  means  clear  the  guilty."  But  we  have  evidence,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  He  delights  supremely  in  the  happiness  of  His  creatures. 
How  then  can  God  be  just,  and  yet  tlie  justifier  of  the  ungodly  ? 
Natural  Ethics  here  conduct  to  a  yawning  chasm,  but  show  no 
bridge  across ;  while  we  are  led  most  anxiously  to  long  for  one,  and 
almost  to  expect  that  one  will  appear.  They  lead  us  to  a  place 
wliere  we  have  no  light,  but  where  we  are  led  to  cry  out  for  a  light 
because  of  the  very  thickness  of  the  darkness.  How  grateful  should 
we  be  when  a  light  is  vouchsafed  from  heaven  to  show  us  that  the 
gulf  is  spanned,  and  to  disclose  the  way  by  which  it  may  bo 
crossed  1 


266  MOBAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 


CE AFTER   III. 

THE    FREED  0  31    OF    THE    WILL. 

We  have  seen  that  conscience  pronounces  its  decisions  on  acts 
of  tlie  will.  Not  only  so,  its  judgments  proceed  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  \\\\\  is  in  the  proper  exercise  of  its  full  functions  ;  in 
other  words,  that  the  will  is  free.  In  every  act  of  will  there  is  an 
essential  freedom,  of  which  the  mind  is  conscious.  The  possession 
of  a  free  will  is  thus  one  of  the  elements  which  go  to  constitute 
man  a  moral  and  responsible  agent. 

The  will  is  free.  In  saying  so,  I  mean  to  assert  not  merely  that 
it  is  free  to  act  as  it  pleases — indeed  this  maxim  is  not  universally 
true,  for  the  will  may  often  be  hindered  from  action,  as  when  I 
will  to  move  my  arm,  and  it  refuses  to  obey  because  of  paralysis. 
I  claim  for  it  an  anterior  and  a  higher  power,  a  power  in  the  mind 
to  choose,  and,  when  it  chooses,  a  consciousness  that  it  might  choose 
otherwise. 

This  truth  is  revealed  to  us  by  immediate  consciousness,  and  is 
not  to  be  set  aside  by  any  other  truth  whatever.  It  is  a  first  truth 
equal  to  the  highest,  to  no  one  of  which  will  it  ever  yield.  It  can- 
not be  set  aside  by  any  other  truth,  not  even  by  any  other  first 
truth,  and  certainly  by  no  derived  truth.  Whatever  other  propo- 
sition is  true,  this  is  true  also,  that  man's  will  is  free.  If  there  be 
any  other  truth  apparently  inconsistent  with  it,  care  must  be  taken 
so  to  express  it  that  it  may  not  be  truly  contradictory. 

It  is  a  truth  which  may  bo  expressed  in  words.  It  is  so  ex- 
pressed when  we  say  the  mind  has  in  itself  the  power  of  choice. 
But  it  cannot  be  drawn  from  any  deeper  fact,  or  resolved  into  any 
anterior  principle.     Any  attempts  to  reduce  it  to  simpler  elements 


BOOK  IV.]        THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE   WILE  2G7 

will  only  perplex  and  confuse  the  whole  subject.  Thus,  that  which 
is  free,  is  often  supposed  to  be  uncaused  ;  whereas  the  uncaused,  for 
aught  I  know,  might,  if  there  could  be  such  a  thing  in  creation,  not 
be  free.  It  is  from  the  exercise  of  will  that  we  get  our  very  idea 
of  freedom.  As  we  survey  the  external  world,  including  even  our 
own  bodily  frame,  we  find  it  bound  in  the  chain  of  pliysical  causa- 
tion, in  which  every  movement  of  an  object  is  determined  from 
without.  Even  our  very  intellectual  and  emotive  states  are  under 
laws  of  association  and  potencies  which  control  them.  It  is  in  the 
sanctuary  of  the  will  that  freedom  alone  is  to  be  found. 

So  much  is  clear,  so  very  clear  that  any  attempts  to  make  it 
clearer  will  only  darken  it.  The  difficulties  which  encompass  this 
subject  do  not  arise  from  free  will  itself,  but  from  its  connexion 
with  other  truths.  First,  there  is  the  Divine  Foreknowledge  and 
the  Divine  Sovereignty,  doctrines  which  recommend  themselves  to 
high  reason,  and  which  are  found  in  the  Word  of  God.  Secondly, 
there  is  the  appearance  of  causation  in  the  mind,  even  in  its  volun- 
tary acts.  The  attempt  to  reconcile  these  with  creature  freedom 
has  engaged  the  subtlest,  and  perplexed  the  clearest  minds,  since 
men  began  to  ask  the  how,  the  why,  and  the  wherefore.  It  is  my 
humble  but  decided  opinion  that  the  human  understanding  cannot 
thoroughly  clear  up  the  subject.  I  certainly  do  not  profess  to  be 
able  to  throw  light  upon  it.  I  must  content  myself  with  remark- 
ing on  some  of  the  more  prevalent  theories,  and  expounding  the 
view  which  seems  to  me  to  be  upon  the  whole  the  most  satis- 
factory. 

Among  the  speculative  thinkers  of  the  present  day  there  are  two 
favourite  modes  by  whicli  they  try  to  extricate  themselves  from  the 
difficulties  which  beset  the  subject.  One  was  introduced  by  Kant, 
who  has  been  followed  by  a  long  train  of  theologians  and  meta- 
physicians. According  to  this  view,  the  mind  knows  only  phenom- 
ena, and  not  things,  and  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  mental 
framework  giving  a  form  to  our  knowledge  of  phenomena.  It 
applies  therefore  to  appearances  and  not  to  things,  which,  for 
aught  we  know,  or  can  know,  in  this  world,  may  or  may  not  obey 
the  law  of  causation.  Kant  acknowledges  that  we  are  led  by  the 
speculative  principles   of  the  mind  to  look  on   even   the  will  as 


268  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

under  the  domiuion  of  cause,  but  then  it  is  quite  conceivable  tliat 
the  thinf?  itself  may  after  all  be  free,  and  we  are  led  to  believe  it 
to  be  free  by  the  Practical  Reason.  Now  I  have  to  remark,  first 
of  all,  on  this  theory,  that  it  must  be  taken  in  its  entirety.  We 
are  not  at  liberty  (as  some  would  do)  to  adopt  it  merely  so  far  as 
it  may  suit  our  purpose,  and  refuse  the  very  foundation  on  which 
it  is  built.  We  must,  in  particular,  admit  as  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple that  we  can  never  know  things,  and  that  causation  has  no 
respect  whatever  to  things,  but  is  a  mere  subjective  principle  of 
the  mind.  But  I  have  failed  in  one  of  the  main  ends  of  this 
treatise  if  I  have  not  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  mind  has 
knowledge  of  things  in  its  primary  exercises,  that  we  know  objects 
as  having  potency,  and  that  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  refers  to 
sucli  objects.  If  we  deny  this,  we  are  denying  certain  of  the  in- 
tuitions of  the  mind  in  some  of  their  clearest  enunciations  ;  and  if 
we  deny  them  in  one  of  their  declarations,  why  not  in  others  ?  and 
if  we  deny  one  set,  why  not  every  other  set  ?  till  at  last  we  know 
not  what  to  believe  and  what  to  disbelieve.  Those  who  believe 
that  the  mind  can  come  to  the  knowledge  of  things,  and  that  they 
discover  power  in  things,  cannot  resort  to  this  theory. 

A  more  prevalent  doctrine  among  those  who  hold  firmly  by  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  is  that  causation  does  not  extend  to  the  pro- 
duction of  volitions.  Thus  M.  Cousin  maintains  that  we  obtain 
our  very  idea  of  causes  from  the  exercise  of  will,  which  may  be  a 
cause,  but  cannot  be  an  effect.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this 
theory  arise,  first,  from  the  nature  of  our  intuition  in  i^egard  to 
cause,  and,  secondly,  from  certain  facts  which  seem  to  show  that 
there  is  causation  in  the  will.  The  question  is,  first,  whether 
causation  reaches  over  our  volitions,  as  it  does  over  our  other 
mental  acts.  A  man  docs  a  malevolent  or  a  benevolent  deed ; 
when  this  fact  is  presented,  the  question  is.  Do  we,  or  do  we  not, 
look  for  a  cause  in  the  previous  character  and  disposition  of  the 
individual,  combined  .possibly  with  the  circumstances  in  which  he 
was  placed  ?  Do  we  not  anticipate  of  the  man  thoroughly  just, 
that  he  will  ever  do  just  acts.  We  are  sure  in  regard  to  the  good 
God,  that  He  will  and  ever  must  be  good.  To  confirm  all  this  we 
have,   secondly,  facts,  statistical  facts.      Knowing  that    if   causes 


BOOK  IV.]         THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL.  269 

keep  the  same,  the  same  effects  will  follow,  men  draw  out  statistics 
of  Yoluntaiy  acts,  which  turn  out  to  be  quite  as  correct  as  statistics 
of  the  weather,  or  of  the  mortality  of  man.  The  number  of  thefts 
and  murders  that  will  be  committed  in  a  country  next  year,  and 
the  number  of  letters  which  will  be  posted,  can  be  determined  as 
accurately  as  the  number  of  births  or  deaths.  The  facts  cannot  be 
denied,  and  they  proceed  on  the  principles  of  a  sameness  of  causes 
producing  a  sameness  of  effects,  which  causes  embrace  voluntary 
acts.' 

To  avoid  these  difficulties,  I  am  inclined  to  admit  that  antece- 
dent circumstances  do  act  causally  on  the  will.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  I  maintain  that  cause  operates  in  a  very  different  way  upon 
the  will  from  that  in  which  it  acts  in  other  departments  of  nature. 
The  mind  has  and  must  have  the  power  of  free  choice :  so  says 
consciousness.  But  consciousness  does  not  say,  and  cannot  say, 
what  antecedent  circumstances  of  an  internal  character  have  swayed 
the  will.  These  causes  certainly  do  not  operate  as  causes  operate 
in  physical  nature,  or  as  causes  operate  in  our  intellectual  being. 
I  have  shown  that  cause  in  the  mind  is  not  of  the  same  character 

1  Dr.  Mansel,  in  Prolegomena  Logir.a,  App.  D,  has  examined  my  views  from  the  stand- 
point of  his  own  doctrine  of  cause,  which  is,  that  "  we  have  only  two  positive  notions  of 
causation;  one,  the  exertion  of  power  by  an  intelligent  being;  the  other,  the  uniform 
sequence  of  phenomenon  B  from  A,"  the  latter  being  experiential.  I  have  given  a  different 
account  (supra,  pp.  110-112,  140,  160),  and  my  readers  must  judge  for  themselves.  Dr. 
Mansel  endeavours  to  get  rid  of  the  argument  derived  from  the  statistics  of  voluntary  actions 
thus;  "The  resemblance,  however,  between  statistical  averages  and  natural  laws  fails  at 
the  very  point  on  which  the  whole  weight  of  the  argument  rests.  A  natural  law  is  valid 
for  a  class  of  objects  only  because  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  valid  for  each  individual  of  that  class  : 
the  law  of  gravitation,  for  instance,  is  exhibited  in  a  single  apple  as  much  as  in  an  orchard  ; 
and  is  concluded  of  the  latter  from  being  observed  in  the  former.  But  the  uniformity  rep- 
resented by  statistical  averages  is  one  which  is  observed  in  masses  only,  and  not  in  individ- 
uals" (^Alds  to  Faith,  Art.  Miracles,  p.  19).  There  is  no  doubt  a  point  of  difference  here, 
but  it  does  not  affect  the  question  at  issue.  In  the  one  we  know  what  are  the  precise 
agents  working  in  the  individual  case,  in  the  other  we  do  not,  but  in  both  there  is  causation. 
Averages  can  be  struck,  and  predictions  uttered,  in  regard  to  such  phenomena  as  human 
mortality,  simply  because  there  is  a  set  of  causes  in  operation  which  produce  uniform 
results,  and  there  is  uncertainty  to  ««  as  to  a  particular  case,  simply  because  we  do  not 
know  what  causes  have  been  at  work.  A  chance  event  is  bot  an  uncaused  one,  but  simply 
one  whose  cause  is  unknown  to  us.  It  lies  with  Dr.  Mansel  to  show  how  general  predictions 
could  be  uttered  as  to  voluntary  acts  if  there  were  no  causation  operating.  I  have  given 
the  view  which  seems  sanctioned  by  our  constitution.  But  on  so  tangled  a  subject  I  shrink 
from  controversy.  I  must  ever  hold  most  resolutely  to  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  But  I  will  listen  most  willingly  to  any  one  who  can  give  a  better 
account — that  is,  more  in  accordance  with  our  constitution— of  the  expectation  that  the 
thoroughly  good  being  will  continue  good,  or  of  the  possibility  of  giving  statistics  in  an- 
ticipation of  voluntary  actions. 


270  MORAL  CONVICTIONS.  [part  ii. 

as  cause  in  physical  nature.  I  believe  tliat  cause,  as  operating  on 
the  will,  is  of  a  different  character  from  cause  as  acting  in  the  intel- 
lectual or  emotive  parts  of  our  nature.  It  is  here,  I  believe, — that 
is,  in  the  peculiar  nature  of  cause  as  operating  on  the  will, — that 
the  means  of  clearing  up  this  subject,  and  effecting  a  reconciliation 
between  the  seeming  incongruities,  are  to  be  found.  But  I  do  not 
say  that  man  can  find  them,  for  I  am  convinced  he  cannot  penetrate 
this  region,  and  determine  the  nature  and  mode  of  operation  of 
the  power  wliich  sways  the  will.  We  can  point  to  the  place  where 
must  lie  the  means  of  clearing  up  the  mystery,  but  then  we  cannot 
reach  that  place.  It  is  the  region  where  operate  the  agencies  which 
come  between  God  and  the  will  of  His  rational  and  responsible 
creatures.  Well  may  we  pause  here,  and  lay  our  hands  on  our 
mouths,  as  we  say  in  our  hearts,  "  Once  have  I  spoken,  but  I  will 
not  answer  ;  yea,  twice,  but  I  will  proceed  no  further." 


PART   THIRD. 


INTUITIVE  PRIXCIPLES  AND  THE  VARIOUS   SCIENCES. 


(271) 


BOOK  I. 
METAPHYSICS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
METAPHYSICS,    GNOSIOLOGY,  AND   ONTOLOGY. 

The  phrase  Metaphysics  is  believed  to  have  taken  its  rise  from 
the  title  given  to  one  of  the  treatises  of  Aristotle.  There  is  no 
reason  to  think  that  the  name  was  given  to  the  work  referred  to 
by  the  author.  It  does  not  even  appear  that  it  was  meant  to  denote 
the  nature  of  the  contents.  Andronicus,  it  is  said,  inscribed  on 
the  manuscripts,  Td  fxera  ret  Availed,  to  intimate  that  these  books 
were  to  follow  the  physical  treatises.'  In  the  writings  of  Aris- 
totle this  department  is  called,  not  Metaphysics,  but  the  First 
Philosophy. 

Metaphysical  speculation  is  usually  supposed,  and  I  believe  cor- 
rectly, to  have  originated  with  the  Eleatics,  who  flourished  four 
hundred  and  fifty  or  five  Imndred  years  before  our  era.  Separating 
from  the  physiologists,  that  is,  physical  speculators,  of  the  Ionian 
school,  they  directed  their  attention  to  the  dicta  of  inward  reason. 
Going  far  below  what  they  represented  as  the  illusion  of  tlie  senses, 
tliey  souglit  to  penetrate  the  mystery  of  being.  With  them  all 
tilings  were  one,  and  thus  incapable  of  motion  or  of  change. 

Metaphysics  are  treated,  along  with  all  other  topics,  by  Plato, 
under  the   somewhat    unfortunate   name   of   Dialectics,  which  has 

'  On  the  title,  see  Bonitz,  "  Commentarius"  appended  to  his  edition  of  the  Meta- 
physics. See  also  M'Mahon's  translation  of  the  Metaphysics,  p.  1,  where  Clemens  Alexan- 
drinus  and  Thiloponus  are  quoted  as  understanding  the  phrase  to  denote  the  supra- 
natural. 

18  '  (2^3) 


274  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

nearly  the  same  meaning  as  Speculative  Philosophy  has  in  modern 
times,  only  the  former  meant  discussion  in  conversation,  the 
latter,  discussion  in  the  head  or  in  books.  According  to  Plato,  it 
"^vas  the  science  'which  treated  of  the  one  Real  Being  {ro  6V)  and  the 
Real  Good.  This  one  Real  Being  was  not  with  him,  as  with  the 
Eleatics,  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  the  many.  It  em- 
braced the  inquiry  into  tlie  nature  of  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful, 
and  expounded  the  Eternal  Ideas  which  had  been  in  or  before 
the  Divine  Mind  from  all  eternity,  to  the  contemplation  of  which 
man's  soul  could  rise  by  cogitation,  because  it  had  been  formed  in 
the  Divine  image,  and  in  which  the  sensible  universe  participated, 
thereby  having  a  stability  in  the  midst  of  its  mutability.' 

According  to  Aristotle,  the  First  Philosophy  treats  of  entity  so 
far  forth  as  it  is  entity,  and  of  quiddity  or  the  nature  of  a  thing, 
and  of  that  wliich  is  universally  inherent,  so  far  as  it  is  in  entity. 
He  argues  that  if  there  were  not  some  substance  (ovaia)  other  than 
those  that  exist  in  nature,  then  Physics  Avould  be  the  first  science, 
but  if  there  be  an  eternal  and  unmovable  substance,  then  there 
must  be  a  prior  science  to  treat  of  it,  and  this  is  to  be  honoured 
as  the  first  and  highest  philosophy.  But  the  inquiry  into  entity 
is,  in  fact,  an  inquiry  into  causes,  or  what  makes  a  thing  to  be 
what  it  is  ;  and  he  shows  that  such  an  investigation  conducts  to 
four  causes  : — (1.)  the  Formal  {r7)v  ovaiav  teal  ro  n  ^v  elvai)  ;  (2.) 
The  ]\[aterial  {ti)v  vXiji'  koI  to  inroKeiiievov)  ;  (3.)  The  Efiicient  {odev 
Yj  dpxYj  TTJg  Ktvi'joeog)  ;  (4.)  Tlie  Final  (to  6v  h'SKev  koc  rh  dyadov)." 

From  the  bent  of  his  genius.  Bacon  was  no  way  addicted  to 
Metaphysics,  but  he  allots  it  a  separate  and  a  most  important  place. 
He  says  that  Physics  regard  what  is  wholly  immersed  in  matter 
and  movable,  supposing  only  existence  and  natural  necessity, 
whereas  Metaphysics  regard  what  is  more  abstracted  and  fixed, 
and  suppose  also  mind  and  idea.  To  be  more  particular,  ho  repre- 
sents Physics  as  inquiring  into  the  efiicient  and  material  cause, 
and  Metaphysics  into  the  formal  and  final.' 

1  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  refer  to  Archer  Butler's  account  of  Plato,  in  Ilist.  of  Anc. 
Phil.,  as  the  finest  in  our  language. 

2  Metaph.,  Book  i.  Chap.  iii.  sect.  1,  compared  with  Book  iii.  Chap.  i.  and  Book  v. 
Chap.  i.  sect.  3. 

3  De  Atigmentis,  iii.  4. 


BOOK  I.]        GNOSIOLOGY  AND   ONTOLOGY.  275 

The  two  largest  metaphysical  treatises  of  Descartes  are  entitled 
Meditations  on  the  First  Philosophy  and  Principles  of  Philosophy. 
He  says  that  the  first  part  of  philosophy  is  "  Metaphysics,  in  which 
are  contained  the  principles  of  knowledge,  among  which  arc  found 
the  explication  of  the  principal  attributes  of  God,  of  the  immate- 
riality of  the  soul,  and  of  all  the  clear  and  simple  notions  that  are 
in  us."  He  represents  Philosophy  as  a  tree,  of  which  Metaphysics  is 
the  root,  Physics  the  trunk,  and  all  the  other  sciences  the  branches 
that  grow  out  of  this  trunk,^ 

In  the  Wolfian  School,  which  proposed  to  systematize  the  scat- 
tered philosophy  of  Leibnitz,  Metaphysics  was  asked  to  deal  with 
three  grand  topics, — God,  the  World,  and  the  Soul, — and  should 
aim  to  construct  a  Rational  Theology,  a  Eational  Physics,  and  a 
Rational  Psychology.  Kant  takes  up  this  view  of  Metaphysics, 
but  labours  to  show  that  the  speculative  reason  cannot  construct 
any  one  of  these  three  sciences.  The  only  available  metaphysics 
according  to  him,  is  a  Criticism  of  the  Reason,  unfolding  its  a  priori 
elements.  He  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  all  the  operations  of 
the  Speculative  Reason  are  mere  subjective  exercises,  which  imply 
no  objective  reality,  and  admit  of  no  application  to  things  ;  and 
he  saves  himself  from  scepticism  by  a  criticism  of  tlie  Practical 
Reason,  which  guarantees  the  existence  of  God,  Freedom,  and  Im- 
mortality.' 

In  the  schools  which  ramified  from  Kant,  Metaphysics  is  repre- 
sented as  being  a  systematic  search  after  the  Absolute,  —  after 
Absolute  Being,  its  nature,  and  its  metliod  of  development. 

And  what  are  we  to  make  of  Metapliysics  in  our  own  country? 
It  is  clear  that  she  has  lost,  and,  I  suspect,  for  ever,  the  position 
once  allowed  her,  wlien  she  stood  at  the  head  of  all  secular  knowl- 
edge, and  claimed  to  be  equal,  or  all  but  equal,  in  rank,  to  theology 
herself.  "  Time  was,"  says  Kant,'  "  when  she  was  the  queen  of  all 
the  sciences  ;  and  if  we  take  the  will  for  the  deed,  she  certainly 
deserves,  so  far  as  regards  the  high  importance  of  her  object- 
matter,  this  title  of  honour.  Now  it  is  the  fashion  to  heap  con- 
tempt  and   scorn   upon   her,  and  tlie   matron    mourns,  forlorn  and 

>  Prin.  ridl.  Epis.  Auth.  s  See  Methodcnlehre,  in  Kr.  d.  r.  Fern. 

3  luitik,  translated  by  Mciklejohn,  p.  xvii. 


276  3IETAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

forsaken,  like  Ilccuba."  Some  seem  inclined  to  treat  her  very  mncli 
as  they  treat  tliose  de  jure  sovereigns  wandering  over  Europe,  whom 
no  country  will  take  ni^  de  facto  sovereigns,  that  is,  they  give  her 
all  outward  honour,  but  no  authority.  Others  are  prepared  to  set 
aside  her  claims  very  summarily.  The  multitudes  who  set  value  on 
nothing  but  wh.at  can  bo  counted  in  money,  never  allow  themselves 
to  speak  of  metaphysics  except  with  a  sneer.  The  ever-increasing 
number  of  persons  wlio  read,  but  who  are  indisposed  to  think, 
complain  that  philosophy  is  not  so  interesting  as  the  new  novel, 
or  the  pictorial  history,  which  is  quite  as  exciting  and  quite  as 
nutrue  as  the  novel.  The  physicist  who  has  kept  a  register  of  tho 
heat  of  the  atmosphere  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  for  the 
last  five  years,  and  the  naturalist  who  has  discovered  a  plant 
or  insect  distinguished  from  all  hitherto  known  species  by  an  addi- 
lionr.l  spot,  cannot  coiiCeal  their  conteii^pt  for  a  departniCnt  of 
inquiry  whicii  deals  with  objects  which  cannot  be  seen  nor  handled, 
weighed  nor  measured. 

In  the  face  of  all  this  scorn  I  boldly  affirm  that  Metaphysics  are 
not  exploded,  and  that  tlicy  never  will  be  exploded.  But  if  they 
are  to  keep  or  regain  a  place  in  this  country,  they  must  submit  to 
lower  their  pretensions,  and  secure  that  the  performance  be  in 
some  measure  equal  to  the  profession  made.  In  particular,  they 
must  confine  themselves  to  a  field  which  is  open  to  human  inves- 
tigation, and  which  can  be  overtaken.  Looking  to  the  philosophies 
to  which  I  have  just  been  referring,  we  see  that  some  have  ascribed 
to  it  far  too  wide  a  province,  allotting  to  it  inquiries  whicli  in 
modern  tim.es  have  been  happily  distributed,  owing  to  the  advance 
in  the  division  of  labour,  to  a  gi'cat  number  of  sciences.  The  nature 
of  things  v.'ithout  and  within  us,  their  causes  and  properties  and 
modes  of  operation,  these  are  to  be  determined  only  by  a  great 
number  and  variety  of  inductive  sciences,  each  prosecuted  in  its 
own  way.  Others,  again,  have  allotted  to  it  investigations  which 
must  ever  be  futile,  either  because  they  are  meaningless,  or  because 
they  are  beyond  the  human  faculties.  Thus  it  is  vain  for  man  to 
seek  after  Being  in  itself,  or  the  One  in  itself,  because  there  is  no 
such  thing  anywhere  but  in  the  brain  of  the  metaphysician,  who 
does  not  comprehend  what  sort  of  realities  abstractions  have ;  and 


BOOK  I.]         GNOSIOLOGY  AND  ONTOLOGY.  277 

as  to  the  Absolute,  if  it  has  a  signification  at  all,  it  is  an  object  be- 
yond the  grasp  of  man's  reason.  But  is  there  no  field  of  inquiry 
left  open  to  Metaphysics  ?  I  believe  tliat  there  is,  and  that  in  this 
field  those  who  are  competent  for  the  arduous  work  of  digging  in 
it  may  find  treasures  of  the  highest  value.  Dugald  Stewart  has 
noticed  "  the  extraordinary  change  which  has  gradually  and  insen- 
sibly taken  place,  since  the  publication  of  Locke's  Essay,  in  the 
meaning  of  the  word  Metaphysics,  a  word  formerly  appropriated 
to  the  ontology  and  j^ncumatology  of  the  schools,  but  now  under- 
stood as  equally  applicable  to  all  those  inquiries  which  have  for 
their  object  to  trace  the  various  branches  of  human  knowledge  to 
the  first  principles  in  the  constitution  of  our  nature.'"  This  is  an 
approximation  to  a  proper  account  of  the  science.  I  am  inclined 
to  define  Metapliysics  as  The  Science  which  inquires  into  the 
Original  or  Intuitive  Conyictions  of  the  Mind,  with  the  view 
OF  Generalizing  and  expressing  them,  and  also  of  Determining 

WHAT   ARE    THE    OBJECTS     REVEALED    BY   THEM.       In    prOSCCUting    the 

investigation,  it  must  first  be  the  aim  of  the  inquirer  to  observe  the 
phenomena,  primarily  and  mainly,  by  direct  consciousness  or  im- 
mediate introspection,  but  secondarily,  and  often  as  satisfactorily, 
by  examining  the  expression  of  the  inward  convictions  in  the  con- 
versation and  writings,  and,  we  may  add,  deeds  of  mankind.  As 
he  observes,  he  must  be  careful  by  analysis  to  separate  the  intui- 
tions from  the  associated  mental  states,  and  to  distinguish  between 
one  kind  of  intuition  and  another  ;  and  he  must  also  endeavour  to 
classify  them,  and  to  put  them  in  rigidly  exact  formulae.  What  he 
thus  reaches,  if  the  process  has  been  properly  conducted,  he  is  en- 
titled to  regard  as  first,  or  fundamental,  or  philosophic  principles. 
In  tliis  investigation  he  will  sometimes  have  to  look  more  to  the 
subjective,  and  at  other  times  more  to  the  objective  side  ;  or,  in 
other  words,  sometimes  more  to  the  knowing  powers,  and  at  other 
times  more  to  the  objects  known.  So  far  as  the  science  looks  at 
the  first,  it  may  be  called  Gnosiology  ;''  so  far  as  it  looks,  to  the 
second,  it  may  be  called  Ontology  ;  whicli  two  may  be  regarded 

1  Dl<tseria(ion,  p.  47"). 

5  Uaniilton  S|)n;iks   of  some  older  treatises,  which   afford   a  name  not  unsuitable  for  3 
nomoloj;}'  of  cognitions,  viz.,  Gnosiology,  or  Gnostologia  (Met.  Lect.  7). 


278  3IETAPHYSICS.  [part  m. 

as  subordiiuae  aeiiarlments  of  :NrETAriiY8ics.  This  treatise  pro- 
fesses to  be  one  on  Mctaphysies  tliroiigiiout.  In  tlic  chapters 
Avhich  follow  this,  I  am  to  single  out  Knowing  and  Being  for  more 
special  consideration. 

The   pi-ovincc   tiius   allotted   to   Metaphysics  is   quite   a   defined 
one.     It  is  not  the  science  of  all  truth,  but  it  is  the  science  of  an 
important   department,— it   is   the    science    of    fundamental    truth. 
It  should   not  venture   to  ascertain  the  natui'e   of  all   knowledge, 
divine  and  human  ;    it  should  be  satisfied  if  it  can  find  what  arc 
the  original  knowing  jiowers  of  man.      It  should  not  i)retcnd  to 
settle   the   nature   of  all   being,   or   the  whole   nature   of  any  one 
being  ;  but  it  would  try  to  find  what  we  can  know  of  certain  kinds 
of    being  by   intuition.      It   would    not    presume   to   discover    all 
causes, — which   are    to    be   discovered    only  partially  by   all    the 
ociencos, — but  it  should  expound  the  nature  of  our  original  convic- 
tion regarding  causation.      It  should  not  start  with  the  Absolute, 
and  thence  derive  all  dependent  existence  ;   but,  as  I  will  show,  it 
is  competent  to  prove  that  our  convictions,  aided  by  obvious  facts, 
lead  us  to  believe  in  an  Infinite  Being.     It  has  a  field  in  which 
it   is   perfectly  competent-  to  discover  truth.      The   body  of  truth 
thus    reached    constitutes,    in    a    special    sense,   philosophy  ;     and 
"  philosopliicar'   is   an    epithet   whicli    may    be    applied    to    every 
inquiry  which  reaches  it  in  the  last  resort,  or  which  begins  with 
it  and  uses  it.     It  is  to  be  valued,  like  all  other  truth,  for  its  own 
sake,  anil  l)ccauso  truth  is  the  nutriment  of  the  intellect,  for  wliich 
it  craves,  and  by  which,  as  it  feeds  on  it,  it  is  strengthened.     The 
principles  at  which  it  looks  are  involved,  as  I  am  to  show  in  next 
Book,  in  all  the  deeper  sciences,  in  all  mental  sciences,  in  mathe- 
matics, and  even  in  certain  departments  of  physical  science ;   and 
it  is  desirable,  for  the  sake  not  only  of  metaphysics,  but  of  all  the 
sciences,  to  have   these   principles   accurately  expounded,  in   order 
that  other  branches  of  knowledge  may  be  delivered  from  discus- 
sions whicli  are  to  them  incumbrances,  and  have  their  foundations 
distinctly  laid  and  firmly  settled.     It  is  a  science  in  which  progress 
may  be  made  from  age  to  age  by  the  united  action  of  successive 
labourers    observing,    distinguishing,    arranging,  and    devising    an 
appropriate  nomenclature.     Like  every  other  science  which  has  to 


BOOK  I.]         GNOSIOLOGY  AND  ONTOLOGY.  279 

do  with  fact?,  it  mast  be  conducted  in  the  Inductive  Method,'  in 
which  observation  is  the  first  process,  and  the  last  process,  and  the 
main  process  throughout ;  the  process  with  which  we  start,  and 
the  process  by  which  we  advance  all  along,  and  at  the  close  test 
all  that  is  done  ;  but  in  which,  at  the  same  time,  analysis  and  gen- 
eralisation are  employed  as  instruments,  always  working,  however, 
on  facts  obsen'ed.  It  is  true  that  metaphysics  reach  truth  which  is 
independent  of  any  observation  of  ours,  but  it  is  truth  which  we  can 
discover  on!}'  by  induction. 

1  "  If  erer  our  philosophy  concerning  the  haman  mind  is  carried  so  far  as  to  deserve  the 
name  of  science,  which  ought  never  to  be  despaired  of,  it  mast  be  bj  observing  facts, 
reducing  them  to  general  rales,  and  drawing  jnst  conclusions  from  them." — Reid's  CoUecUd 
WrUtngs,  p.  122. 


280  METAPHYSICS.  [paet  m. 


CHAPTER   II. 
GNOSIOLOGY. 

SECT.   I.  — ON    KNOWLEDGE. 

What  is  Science  {'Ettigt'^^ij,'!])  ?  is  the  question  put  by  Socrates 
.  in  Plato's  subtle  dialogue  of  Theatetus.  l^ut  the  word  "  science" 
has  two  meanings.  In  one  sense  it  can  be  defined.  It  is  knowl- 
edge, arranged,  correlated,  or  systematized.  In  this  sense  we  speak 
of  astronomy,  geology,  logic,  and  other  sciences.  But  the  word 
had,  at  least  in  Greek,  another  signification,  and  meant  simply 
knowledge ;  and  we  may  suppose  the  question  to  be  put,  What 
is  Knowledge?  To  this  the  reply  must  be,  that  we  cannot  posi- 
tively define  knowledge,  so  as  to  make  it  intelligible  to  one  who 
did  not  know  it  otherwise.  Still  we  can,  by  analysis,  separate 
it  from  other  things  with  which  it  is  associated, — such  as  sensa- 
tions, emotions,  and  fancies, — and  make  it  stand  out  distinctly  to 
the  view  of  those  who  are  already  conscious  of  it.  Tlie  science 
which  thus  unfolds  the  nature  of  knowledge  may  be  called 
Gnosiology,  or  Gnosilogy  (from  yvcoolg  and  Aoyof).  I  prefer  this 
to  Epistemology,  which  would  signify  the  science  of  arranged 
knowledge. 

This  science  should  be  prosecuted  in  the  same  method  as  every 
other  which  has  to  do  with  facts,  tliat  is,  in  the  Inductive.  Its 
main  office  is  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  knowing  powers,  to 
determine  the  mode  of  the  operation  of  each,  and  the  amount,  and, 
what  is  equally  important,  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  each  is 
fitted  to  impart.  This  is  what  I  have  been  doing  all  throughout 
this  treatise.  I  am  not  to  recapitulate  the  processes  here.  Yet 
it  will  be  necessary  to  show,  in  a  few  sentences,  how  the  method 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  281 

followed  aud  tlic  results  reached  have  a  bearing  on  Gnosiology. 
Commencing  with  sense-perception,  I  drew  the  distinction  between 
our  original  and  acquired  perceptions,  and  endeavoured  to  ascertain 
what  are  our  primary  perceptions  through  the  various  senses,  and 
also  pointed  out  tlie  difference  between  sensation  and  perception. 
Proceeding  to  self-consciousness,  I  sought  to  estimate  the  primary 
knowledge  which  we  have  of  self  as  acting  or  exercising  some 
property.  Coming  to  the  reproductive  powers,  I  sliowed  that 
here  the  faith  element  appears,'  and  I  pointed  out  the  relation  in 
which  faith  and  cognition  stand  to  each  other,  and  unfolded  the 
convictions  which  we  have  in  regard  to  space,  time,  and  the  in- 
finite. Looking  to  the  objects  thus  made  known  or  believed  in, 
the  mind  pronounces  a  set  of  judgments,  aud  I  drew  out  a  classifi- 
cation of  tlicse,  and  sought  to  unfold  their  nature.  But  the  mind 
has  not  only  the  capacity  of  discovering  the  true,  it  has  a  power  of 
discovering  the  good  ;  and  I  was  at  pains  to  show  wherein  our 
moral  convictions  are  analogous  to  our  intellectual  convictions,  and 
wherein  they  differ  from  them. 

From  this  statement  it  appears  that  the  metaphysician,  in  pros- 
ecuting his  pursuits,  should  be  able  to  distinguish  —  (1.)  between 
our  cognitions  and  certain  associated  states ;  (2.)  between  one 
kind  of  conviction  and  another  ;  and  (3.)  between  our  original  and 
acquired  convictions.  Almost  all  errors,  excesses,  and  defects  in 
philosophy  have  proceeded  from  overlooking  or  mistaking  these 
all-essential  difi"erences.  Thus  some  confound  their  sensations,  or 
their  feelings,  or  tlieir  inferences,  or  even  their  fancies,  with  their 
primary  knowledge.  Some  imagine  that  our  primitive  convictions 
must  all  be  alike  in  every  respect,  and  that  what  is  affirmed  legit- 
imately of  one  may  be  affirmed  of  any  other,  or  of  all ;  that,  for 
example,  our  intellectual  and  moral  cognitions  all  disclose  the 
same  sort  of  reality  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  perceptions  of  sense. 
Again,  it  is  by  failing  to  distinguish  between  the  convictions  guar- 
anteed by  our  constitution  and  tliose  reached  by  experience,  that 

In  memory— (1.)  the  event  is  retained;  (2.)  comes  np  according  to  tlie  laws  of  associa- 
tion ;  (3.)  comes  with  a  pliantasm  ;  (4.)  is  recognized  as  having  been  before  the  mind  in 
time  past.  Tlie  fourth,  or  recognitive  power,  involving  faith,  and  with  the  idea  of  time 
iu  the  concrete,  i.s  the  essential  element  in  memory,  but  is  often  overlooked  by  later 
psychologists,  German  and  British. 


282  3IETAFHYSICS.  [part  m. 

persons  have  Lccu  led  to  suppose  that  their  senses  or  faculties 
deceive  them. 

In  Plato's  dialogue.  Socrates  is  represented  as  exposing  all  the 
answers  given  by  Theaitetus,  but  without  explicitly  furnishing  one 
of  his  own.  He  shows,  first,  that  science  is  not  sense-perception 
{alad'>]Oig).  It  is  true  tliat  all  knowledge  is  not  derived  from  this 
source  ;  but  a  certain  portion  is, — though  in  order  to  estimate  it 
exactly,  we  must  be  careful  to  separate  from  it  associated  sensa- 
tions, and  stand  up  for  the  positive  veracity  only  of  constitutional 
convictions.  He  shows,  secondly,  that  science  is  not  opinion  or 
judgment  {So^a  d?j]6i'jg).  Yet,  by  judgment  on  materials  supplied, 
we  can  and  do  reach  truth,  and  have  criteria — as  will  be  shown  in 
next  paragraph — by  which  to  test  it.  He  then  shows  that  science 
cannot  consist  in  judgment  with  a  rational  process  {fiera  Xoyov) 
accompanying  it.  It  is  admitted  that  no  rational  process  can  add 
to  the  force  of  truth,  but  analysis  and  explication  can  settle  for  us 
wherein  lies  the  force  of  truth. 

But  the  question  is  here  started.  Can  there  be  a  criterion  of 
truth  ?  Tlie  inquiry  has  commonly  been  made  by  those  who  seek 
for  an  absolute  law,  or  for  one  short  and  easy  rule,  which  may  at 
once  determine  for  us  as  to  every  given  or  supposable  asseveration, 
whether  it  is  or  is  not  true.  Now  it  may  be  confidently  asserted 
that  such  a  criterion  is  not  discoverable  by  man,  nor  can  he  so 
much  as  know  whetlier  it  is  possible  in  the  nature  of  things,  or 
available  to  any  other  intelligences.  But  I  have  laboured  to  show 
that  there  are  tests  of  primitive  truth  not  very  difficult  of  applica- 
tion ;  these  tests  are  self-evidence  and  necessity,  and,  as  auxiliary 
to  these,  catholicity.  Again,  of  that  portion  of  fundamental  truth 
which  may  be  ranked  under  the  head  of  Analytic  Judgments  a 
'priori,  there  are  very  stringent  tests  in  the  Laws  of  Identity,  Non- 
Contradiction,  and  Excluded  Middle.  Very  definite  rules  for  test- 
ing Synthetic  Judgments  a  priori  may  be  found  in  the  maxims 
which  have  been  enunciated  in  treating  of  the  various  classes  of 
Primitive  Judgments.  As  to  experiential  truth,  there  are  in  many 
departments  tests  quite  sufficient  both  for  scientific  and  practical 
purposes,  but  these  are  so  many  that  they  cannot  be  numbered 
here  ;  they  will  be  found  in  a  looser  or  more  rigid  form  in  treatises 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  283 

which  discuss  the  various  branches  of  knowledge,  and  they  are 
now  being  combined  in  works  of  inductive  or  applied  logic.  Each 
advanced  science  and  art  has  its  own  rules  of  evidence,  competent 
to  determine  for  it  what  is  truth  in  its  own  department  and  within 
fields  open  to  man's  observation.  But  there  can  bo  no  rule  found 
by  the  physicist,  or  devised  by  the  metapliysicist,  to  determine  all 
questions,  or  questions  beyond  the  range  of  man's  observation, — • 
as,  for  example,  whether  the  Dog-star  is  or  is  not  inhabited,  or 
whether  there  are  other  substances  in  the  universe  besides  mind 
and  matter. 

SECT.  II.— ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF  OUR   KNOWLEDGE  AND   IDEAS. 

We  must  now  enter  upon  the  inquiries  in  which  Locke,  and  five 
or  six  friends  who  met  in  his  chamber  in  Oxford,  found  themselves 
involved,  and  which  issued  twenty  years  afterwards  in  the  famous 
Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding.  Starting  with  a  far  different 
topic,  they  found  themselves  quickly  at  a  stand,  and  it  came  into 
the  thoughts  of  Locke  that  before  entering  "  upon  inquiries  of  that 
nature,  it  was  necessary  to  examine  our  own  abilities,  and  see  Avliat 
objects  our  understandings  were  or  were  not  fitted  to  deal  with." 
It  follows  from  the  account  given  in  the  preceding  pages  that  man's 
knowledge  is  derived  from  Four  Sources  : — 

FiEST,  We  obtain  knowledge  from  sensation,  or  rather,  sense- 
perception.  Such  is  the  knowledge  we  have  of  body,  and  of  body 
extended  and  resisting  pressure,  and  of  our  organism  as  affecting 
us,  or  as  being  affected  with  smells,  tastes,  sounds,  and  colours. 

Secondly,  Wc  obtain  knowledge  from  self-consciousness.  Such 
is  the  knowledge  we  have  of  self,  and  of  its  modes,  actions,  and 
affections, — say,  as  thinking,  feeling,  resolving. 

I  am  convinced  that  from  these  two  sources  we  obtain  not  all 
our  knowledge,  but  all  the  knowledge  we  have  of  separately  exist- 
ing objects.  We  do  not  know,  and  we  cannot,  as  will  be  shown 
forthwith,  so  much  as  conceive  of  a  distinctly  existing  tiling,  except- 
ing in  HO  far  as  we  have  become  acquainted  witli  it  by  means  of 
sensation  and  reflection,  or  of  materials  thus  derived.     Here  Locke 


284  3IETAPHYSIGS.  [paiit  hi. 

IioIlI  by  a  great  truth,  tlioiigli  lie  did  not  soo  liow  to  limit  it  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  ^vhat  truths  required  to  be  added  to  it  on  the  other. 
For  man  bias  other  sources  of  knowled<2:c. 


Thirdly,  By  a  further  Cognitive  or  Faith  exercise  we  discover 
Qualities  and  Relations  in  objects  which  have  become  known  by 
the  senses  external  and  internal.  Of  this  description  are  the  ideas 
which  the  mind  forms  of  such  objects  as  space,  time,  the  infinite, 
the  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  and  moral  good.  There  is  a 
wide  difference  between  this  Third  Class  and  the  Second,  though 
the  two  liave  often  been  confounded.  In  self-consciousness  we 
look  simply  at  what  is  passing  within,  and  as  it  passes  within. 
But  the  mind  has  a  capacity  of  discovering  further  qualities  and 
relations  among  the  objects  which  have  been  revealed  to  it  by 
sensation  and  consciousness.  What  these  are,  must  be  determined 
by  such  an  inquiry,  as  we  have  undertaken  in  this  treatise,  into 
the  number  and  nature  of  our  Primitive  Beliefs  and  Judgments. 
This  third  kind  of  knowledge  seems  to  be  what  is  referred  to  by 
those  who  represent  the  mind  or  intellect  itself  as  a  source  of  ideas.' 
But  this  account  can  be  admitted  only  on  its  being  understood  that 
the  mind  notices  these  qualities  and  relations  as  in  objects  which 
have  been  made  known  by  sensation  and  reflection. 

Fourthly,  The  mind  can  reach  truth  necessary  and  universal, 
that  is,  universally  true.  This  may  be  regarded  as  knowledge,  and 
it  is  knowledge  which  goes  far  beyond  that  derived  from  the  other 
sources.  We  are  sure  tlmt  these  two  straiglit  lines  which  go 
parallel  for  the  smallest  possible  space,  may  be  extended  infinitely, 
without  being  ever  nearer  each  other.  We  are  certain  that  grati- 
tude and  holy  love,  which  are  good  here,  must  be  good  all  through 
the  wide  universe.  But  this  fourth  kind  of  cognition  is  not  inde- 
pendent of  the  other  three  kinds.     All  the  necessary  truth  we  can 

1  As  by  Leibnitz,  when  to  the  principle  "  nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  fuerit  in 
sensu,"  he  adds,  "  nisi  intellectus  ipse."  The  expression  is  vague.  Professor  Webb  re- 
marks upon  it,  IntellecluaUsm  of  Locke,  p.  8-) :  "  If  Phyllis  were  to  say  to  Amaryllis,  '  there 
is  nothing  in  the  cheesevat  which  was  not  previously  in  the  milk-pail,'  and  Amaryllis 
were  to  add,  '  except  the  cheese-vat  itself,'  the  addition  would  be  regarded  as  palpably 
unmeaning." 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  285 

reach  bears  a  reference  to  objects  which  have  become  known 
directly,  or  bj  a  discursive  process  through  perception  and  con- 
sciousness, either  to  these  objects,  as  primarily  known,  or  to  the 
qnalities  and  relations  in  them  discovered  by  a  further  cognitive 
or  faith  process.  The  knowledge  attained  from  the  first  three 
sources  is,  as  I  have  repeatedly  had  occasion  to  remark,  all  con- 
crete and  individual.  But  we  discern  a  necessity  in  certain  por- 
tions of  the  individual  knowledge  or  convictions,  and  we  can 
proceed  to  generalize  these  ;  and  so  far  as  we  abstract  and  gene- 
ralize properly,  we  are  sure  that  what  is  true  of  the  singular  is 
true  also  of  the  universal  ;  that  what  is  true  of  these  two  lines  is 
true  of  every  set  of  lines  exactly  like  them  whicli  we  could  con- 
template ;  that  what  is  true  of  this  effect,  namely,  that  it  must 
have  a  cause,  is  true  of  every  other,  that  is,  if  we  have  accurately 
determined  it  to  be  an  effect.  By  this  process  we  reach  universal 
truth,  of  which  wo  know  that  it  must  hold  good  in  all  times  and 
at  all  places. 

Such  seem  to  be  the  sources  of  human  knowledge,  and  their  re- 
lations one  to  another  and  to  things.  "We  arc  ever  increasing  the 
stock  got  from  all  tliese  quarters.  We  can  add  to  Avhat  we  have 
through  the  senses  by  observing  other  and  new  objects.  We  can 
know  more  of  our  minds  by  carefully  noting  their  actions.  The 
mind,  too,  can  rise  to  clearer  and  nobler  views  of  intellectual  and 
moral  qualities  by  meditating  on  the  proper  objects  and  themes. 
We  can  widen  and  consolidate  our  acquaintance  with  necessary 
and  universal  truth  by  a  careful  inspection  and  generalization  of 
our  individual  convictions. 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  our  ideas  is  substantially  the  same 
with  that  of  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  ;  but,  in  discussing  this 
second  question,  it  is  of  all  things  essential  to  have  it  fixed  what 
is  meant  by  "  idea."  Plato,  with  whom  the  terra  originated  as  a 
philosophic  one,  meant  those  eternal  patterns  which  have  been  in 
or  before  the  Divine  mind  from  all  eternity,  which  the  works  of 
nature  participate  in  to  some  extent,  and  to  the  contemplation  of 
which  the  mind  of  man  can  rise  by  abstraction  and  philosophic 
meditation.  Descartes  meant  by  it  whatever  is  before  the  mind 
in   every   sort  of  mental   apprehension.      Locke    tells   us   tliat  he 


28C)  METAPHYSICS.  [part  iu 

denotes  by  the  phrase  "whatever  is  meant  by  phantasm,  notion, 
species."  Kant  applied  the  phrase  to  tlie  ideas  of  substance, 
totality  of  phenomena,  and  God,  reached  by  the  reason  as  a 
regulative  faculty  going  out  be3'ond  the  province  of  experience 
and  objective  reality.  Hegel  is  for  ever  dwelling  on  an  absolute 
idea,  whicli  he  identifies  with  God,  and  represents  as  ever  unfolding 
itself  out  of  nothing  into  being,  subjective  and  objective.  Using 
the  phrase  in  the  Platonic  sense,  it  is  scarcely  relevant  to  inquire 
into  the  origin  of  our  ideas  ;  it  is  clear,  however,  that  Plato 
represented  our  recognition  of  eternal  ideas  as  a  higli  intellectual 
exercise,  originating  in  the  inborn  power  of  the  mind,  and  awahencd 
by  inward  cogitation  and  reminiscence.  In  the  Kantian  and 
Hegelian  systems  the  idea  is  supposed  to  be  discerned  by  reason  ; 
Kant  giving  it  no  existence  except  in  the  mind,  and  Hegel  giving 
it  an  existence  both  objective  and  subjective,  but  identifying  the 
reason  with  the  idea,  and  the  objective  with  the  subjective.  Using 
the  phrase  in  the  Cartesian  and  Lockian  sense,  we  can  inquire 
into  the  origin  of  our  ideas. 

In  accordance  with  modern  usage  in  the  English  tongue,  it 
might  be  as  well  perhaps  to  employ  the  word  "  idea"  to  denote  the 
reproduced  image  or  representation  in  the  mind,  and  the  abstract 
and  general  notion.  Thus  explained,  it  would  exclude  our  original 
cognitions  on  the  one  hand,  and  also  tlic  regulative  principles  of 
the  mind  on  the  other.  An  idea,  in  tliis  sense,  would  always  be 
a  reproduction  in  an  old  form,  or  more  commonly  in  a  new  form, 
of  what  has  first  been  known.  We  first  know  objects,  external  or 
internal  ;  and  then  we  may  have  them  called  up  in  whole  or  in 
part,  magnified  or  diminished,  mixed  and  compounded  in  an 
infinite  variety  of  ways  ;  or,  by  an  intellectual  process,  we  may 
contemplate  one  of  their  attributes  separately,  or  group  them  into 
classes.  Our  ideas,  in  this  sense,  are  ever  dependent  on  our 
cognitions  ;  we  cannot  have  an  idea,  either  as  an  image  or  a  notion 
of  whicli  the  materials  liavc  not  been  furnished  by  the  various 
cognitive  powers,  primary  and  secondary.  It  is  always  to  be 
remembered  that  by  increase  and  decrease,  by  intellectual  abstrac- 
tion and  generalization,  our  ideas  may  go  far  beyond  our  knowl- 
edge ;     still,    as    our    ideas    in    the    last    resort    depend  'on    our 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOL  OGY.  287 

knowledge,  tliey  must  be  drawn  from  the  same  quarters.  When 
the  question  is  put  then  as  to  the  origin  of  our  ideas,  we  are 
thrown  back  on  the  Four  Sources  from  which  all  our  knowledge 
is  derived.  So  far  as  our  ideas  of  separately  existing  objects  are 
concerned,  they  arc  all  got  ultimately  from  the  outward  and  inward 
senses :  to  this  extent  the  doctrine  of  Locke  is  unassailable.  We 
cannot  imagine  or  think  of  any  other  kind  of  existence  than  matter 
and  mind,  with  space  and  time,  though,  for  aught  we  know,  there  may 
be  other  substances  and  beings  in  the  universe  with  a  far  different 
nature.  But  then  we  are  led  by  our  cognitive  and  faith  powers, 
intellectual  and  moral,  to  clothe  the  objects  thus  known  with 
qualities  and  relations  which  cannot  be  perceived  either  by  sensation 
or  reflection.  It  is  not  by  one  or  other  of  these,  or  by  both  com- 
bined, that  I  come  to  believe  that  space  and  time  are  infinite,  that 
this  effect  must  proceed  from  a  cause,  that  this  benevolent  action 
is  good,  and  that  this  falsehood  is  a  sin  ;  nor  is  it  by  either  or  by 
botli  that  I  can  rise  to  the  conviction  that  the  effect  is  for  ever 
tied  to  its  cause,  and  that  lying  must  be  a  sin  in  all  time  and  in 
all  eternity. 

The  principle,  Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  fuerit  in  sensu, 
has  been  ascribed  to  Aristotle,  but  most  certainly  without  founda- 
tion, as  the  great  Peripatetic  everywhere  calls  in  intuition  in  the 
last  resort,  and  is  ever  coming  to  truth  which  he  represents  as  self- 
evident  and  necessary.  The  maxim  has  been  ascribed  to  the  Stoics, 
who,  however,  at  the  same  time,  placed  in  the  mind  a  native  ruling 
principle.^  It  is  assuredly  not  the  principle  adopted  by  Locke, 
who  is  so  often  represented  as  favouring  it ;  for  the  great  English 
philosopher  ever  traces  our  ideas,  not  to  one,  but  to  two  sources, 
and  delights  to  derive  many  of  our  ideas  from  reflection.  It  is, 
hovrever,  the  fundamental  principle  of  that  school  in  France  and  in 
Britain  which  has  been  called  Sensational.  There  are  three  very 
flagrant  oversights  in  the  theory  of  tliose  who  derive  all  our  ideas 
from  sensation  : — First,  there  is  an  omission  of  all  such  ideas  as 
we  have  of  spirit  and  of  the  qualities  of  spirit,  such  as  rationality, 
free  will,  personality.  Secondly,  there  is  a  neglect  or  a  wrong 
account  of  all  the  further  cognitive  exercises  of  the  mind  by  which 

»  See  supra,  p.  85,  for  the  view  of  the  Stoics. 


288  METAPHYSICS,  [part  m. 

it  comes  to  apprelicnd  such  objects  as  infinite  time,  moral  good, 
merit,  and  responsibility.  Thirdly,  there  is  a  denial,  or  at  least 
oversiglit,  of  the  mind's  deep  convictions  as  to  necessary  and  uni- 
versal truth.  Sensationalism,  followed  out  logically  to  its  conse- 
quences, would  represent  the  mind  as  incapable  of  conceiving  of  a 
spiritual  God,  or  of  being  convinced  of  the  indelible  distinction  be- 
tween good  and  evil ;  and  make  it  illegitimate  to  argue  from  the 
effects  in  the  world  in  favour  of  the  existence  of  a  First  Cause. 

Locke  is  ever  to  be  distinguished  from  those  who  derive  all  our 
ideas  from  the  senses.  He  takes  great  pains  to  sliow  that  a  vast 
number  of  the  most  important  ideas  which  the  mind  of  man  can 
form,  are  got  from  reflection  on  the  operations  of  our  own  minds. 
His  precise  doctrine  is  tliat  the  materials  of  the  ideas  which  man 
can  entertain,  come  in  by  two  inlets,  sensation  and  reflection ;  that 
they  are  at  first  perceived  by  the  mind,  and  tlicu  retained ;  and 
tliat  they  are  subsequently  turned  into  a  great  variety  of  new 
shapes  by  the  faculties  of  discernment,  comparison,  abstraction, 
composition,  and  the  power  of  discovering  moral  relations.  The 
ideas  being  thus  obtained,  he  supposes  that  the  mind  can  perceive 
agreements  and  disagreements  among  tliem.  In  particular,  it  is 
endowed  with  a  power  of  intuition,  by  which  it  at  once  perceives 
the  agreement  and  disagreement  of  certain  ideas,  discovers  these 
to  be  in  the  very  nature  of  ideas,  and  necessary.  Such  being  the 
views  of  Locke,  they  are  as  difi'erent  from  those  of  the  Sensational- 
ists, on  the  one  hand,  as  they  are  from  those  of  Descartes,  Leibnitz, 
and  Kant,  on  the  other.  Indeed  the  most  careless  reader  cannot  go 
tlirough  the  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding  without  discovering 
that,  if  Locke  has  a  strong  sensational,  he  has  also  a  rational  side. 
He  will  allow  no  ideas  to  be  in  the  mind  except  those  wliich  can 
be  shown  to  spring  from  one  or  other  of  the  inlets,  and  yet  he 
resolutely  maintains  that,  with  these  ideas  before  it,  the  mind  may 
perceive  truth  at  once;  he  thinks  that  morality  is  capable  of 
demonstration,  and  in  religion  he  is  decidedly  rationalistic.  So 
far,  it  appears  to  me,  Ave  can  easily  ascertain  the  views  of  Locke. 
It  is  more  diflScult  to  determine  how  far  he  supposed  the  mind  to 
be  capable  of  modifying  or  adding  to  the  materials  derived  from 
the  outward  and  inward  senses.     It  is   quite  clear  that  he  repre- 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.     •  289 

sents  the  mind  as  having  the  power  to  perceive  and  compound  and 
divide  these  ideas,  and  discover  resemblances  and  other  relations  ; 
but  there  are  passages  in  which,  consistently,  or  inconsistently,  he 
speaks  of  the  mind  having  something  more  suggested  to  it,  or 
superinducing  something  higher.'* 

Confining  our  attention  to  the  points  which  are  clear,  I  think 
we  may  discover — not  certainly  such  grave  errors  as  in  the  doc- 
trines of  the  sensationalists,  but  still — several  oversio^hts.  First, 
he  overlooks  the  cognitions  and  beliefs  involved  in  the  exercises 
with  which  the  mind  starts.  This  has  arisen,  to  a  great  extent, 
from  his  attaching  himself  to  the  theory  that  the  mind  begins  not 
with  knowledge,  but  with  ideas,  which  are  at  first  perceived  by 
the  mind,  and  then  compared,  upon  Avhicli  comparison  it  is  that 
the  mind  reaches  knowledge.  He  has  never  set  himself  to  in- 
quire what  is  involved  in  the  sensation  and  reflection  which 
give  us  our  ideas.  He  takes  no  notice  of  intuition  enabling 
U3  to  look  directly  at  the  very  thing  or  of  our  intuition  of 
extension,  or  of  the  cognitive  self-consciousness,  or  of  the  be- 
liefs gathering  round  space  and  time  and  the  infinite.  Secondly, 
1)0  has  not  given  a  distinct  place  and  a  sufficient  prominence 
to  the  ideas  got  from  the  mind  observing  certain  qualities  and 
relations  in  objects  made  known  by  sensation  and  reflection. 
The  defects  of  his  system,  in  not  giving  an  adequate  account 
of  our  idea  of  moral  good,  which  he  gets  from  our  sensations  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  with  a  law  of  God  superinduced,  without  so 
much  as  his  trying  to  prove  how  we  are  bound,  on  his  system,  to 
obey  that  law,  was  perceived  at  an  early  date  by  British  writers, 
who  adhered  to  him  as'  closely  as  possible  ;  and  Shaftesbury  and 
Hutcheson  called  in  a  Moral  Sense  (as  an  addition  to  Locke's 
outward  and  inward  sense)  ;  while  Bishop  Butler  called  in  con- 
science, which  he  characterized  as  a  "  principle  of  reflection." 
Thirdly,  he  has  not  inquired  what  are  the  laws  involved  in  the 
Intuition  to  which  he  appeals  in  the  fourth  book  of  his  Essay  as 

»  Locke  speaks  of  certain  ideas  being  "  suggested"  to  the  mind  by  the  senses  (a  phrase- 
ology adopted  by  Reid  and  Stewart),  Essay,  ii.  vii.  9  ;  and  of  "  relation"  as  "  not  contained 
in  the  real  existence  of  things,  but  extraneous  and  superinduced,"  ii.  xxv.  8.  (See  Webb 
on  IntelUdualism  of  Locke,  v.)  He  maintains  that  morality  is  capable  of  demonstration, 
IV.  iii.  18,  etc.  For  other  passages  illustrative  of  Locke's  precise  views,  supra,  pp.  15,  26, 
S»,  90,  112,  132,  142,  146,  180,  208,  209. 

19 


200  •     METAPHYSICS.  [part  iii. 

"•iviiiix  us  the  most  certain  of  all  our  knowledge.  Ilad  lie  developed 
the  nature  of  intuition,  and  the  principles  involved,  with  the  same 
care  as  he  has  expounded  the  experiential  element,  his  system 
would  have  been  at  once  and  effectually  saved  from  the  fearful 
results  in  Avhich  it  issued  in  France,  where  his  name  was  used  to 
support  doctrines  which  he  would  have  repudiated  with  deep 
indignation.  He  is  riglit  in  saying  that  the  mind  has  not  con- 
sciously before  it  in  spontaneous  action  such  speculative  principles 
as  that  ""Whatever  is  is,"  or  moral  maxims  in  a  formalized  shape  ; 
but  he  has  failed  to  perceive  that  such  principles  as  these  arc  the 
rules  of  our  intuitions,  and  that  they  can  be  discovered  by  a  reflex 
process  of  generalization.  It  is  but  justice  to  Locke  to  say  that 
he  acknowledges  necessary  truth,  but  it  does  not  form  a  part  of 
his  o-eneral  theory.  His  professed  followers  have  abandoned  it ; 
and  sceptics  have  shown  that  he  cannot  reach  it  in  consistency 
with  his  system. 

SECT.  III.— LIMITS  TO  OUR  KNOWLEDGE,   IDEAS,  AND  BELIEFS. 

It  is  instructive  to  find  that  not   a   few  of  the   most  profound 

philosophers  with  which  our  world  has   been  honoured,  have  been 

prone  to  dwell  on  the  limits  to  man's  capacity.     The  truth  is,  it  is 

always  the  smallest  minds  which  are  most  apt  to  be  swollen  with 

the  wind  engendered   by  their  own  vanity.      The  intellects  which 

have   gone   out   with   greatest   energy  to   the   furthest   limits,   are 

those  which  feel  most  keenly  when  they  strike  against  the  barriers 

by  which  human  thought  is  bounded.      The  minds  which  have  set 

out  on  the  widest  excursions,  and  which  have  taken  the  boldest 

flights,  are  those  that  know  best  that  there  is  a  wider  region  lying 

beyond,  which    is    altogether    inaccessible    to    man.      It   was   the 

peculiarly   wise   man   of  the   Hebrews   who    said,   "  No    man    can 

find   out   the  work  that  God  maketli  from  the  beginning   to   the 

end."    The  Greek  sage  by  emphasis  declared  that,  if  he  excelled 

others,  it  was   only  in   this,   that  he  knew  nothing.      It  was   the 

avowed  object  of  the  sagacious  Locke  to  teach  man  the  length  of 

his  tether,  which,  we  may  remark,  those  feel  most  who  attempt  to 

get  away  from  it.     Reid  laboured  to  restrain  the  pride  of  philos- 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  291 

ophy,  and  to  bring  men  back  to  a  common  sense,  in  respect  of  wliicli 
the  peasant  and  philosopher  are  alike.  It  was  the  design  of  Kant's 
great  work  to  show  how  little  speculative  reason  can  accomplish. 
In  our  own  day  we  have  had  Sir  W.  Hamilton  showing,  with  unsur- 
passed logical  power,  within  what  narrow  bounds  the  thought  of 
man  is  restrained. 

We  have  already  in  our  survey  gathered  the  materials  for  enabling 
us  to  settle  the  general  question,  in  Avhich,  liowevcr,  are  several  special 
questions  which  should  be  carefully  separated. 

1.  What  are  the  limits  to  man's  power  of  acquiring  knowledge? 
The  answer  is,  that  he  cannot  know,  at  least  in  this  world,  any 
substance  or  separate  existence  other  than  those  revealed  by  sense 
and  consciousness.  There  may  be,  very  probably  there  are,  in  the 
universe,  other  substances  besides  matter  and  spirit,  other  exist- 
ences which  are  not  substances,  as  well  as  space  and  time,  but  these 
must  ever  remain  unknown  to  us  in  this  world.  Again,  he  can 
never  know  any  qualities  or  relations  among  the  objects  thus  revealed 
to  the  outward  and  inward  sense,  except  in  so  far  as  we  have  special 
faculties  of  knowledge;  and  the  number  and  the  nature  of  these 
arc  to  be  ascertained  by  a  process  of  induction,  and  by  no  other 
process  either  easier  or  more  difficult.  This  is  what  has  been 
attempted  in  this  treatise,  it  may  be  supposed  with  only  partial 
success  in  the  execution,  but,  it  is  confidently  believed,  in  the  right 
method.  A  more  difficult  process  need  not  be  resorted  to,  and 
would  conduct  us  only  into  ever-thickening  intricacies ;  and  an 
easier  method  is  not  available  in  the  investigation  of  the  facts  of 
nature  in  this,  nor  indeed  in  any  other  department.  After  unfolding 
what  seems  to  be  in  our  primitive  cognitions,  I  gave  some  account 
of  the  primitive  faiths  which  gather  round  them,  and  classified  the 
relations  which  the  mind  can  discover,  and  unfolded  the  moral  con- 
victions which  we  are  led  to  form.  Such  are  the  limits  to  man's 
original  capacity,  of  which  there  are  decisive  tests  in  self-evidence, 
necessity,  and  catholicity. 

Witliin  these  limits  man  has  a  wide  field  in  which  to  expatiate  ; 
a  field,  indeed,  which  he  can  never  thoroughly  explore,  but  in 
which  he  may  discover  more  and  more.  What  he  may  discover, 
ftnd  what  he  may  never  be  able  to  discover,  are  to  be  determined 


292  METAPHYSICS.  [paet  hi. 

by  the  separate  sciences,  each  in  its  own  department.  Thus,  what 
Le  can  find  out  of  mind,  of  its  various  powers  and  original  convic- 
tions, is  to  be  dctennined  by  tlie  various  branches  of  mental  science. 
"What  he  can  ascertain  by  the  senses,  aided  by  instruments,  must  be 
settled  by  the  physical  sciences. 

2.  The  limits  to  man's  capacity  of  knowledge  being  ascertained, 
it  is  easy  to  determine  the  limits  to  his  power  of  forming  ideas. 
The  materials  must  all  be  got  from  tlie  four  sources  of  knowledge 
which  have  been  pointed  out.  There  are  two  classes  of  powers 
employed  in  enlarging  and  modifying  these.  The  one  is  the 
imagination,  vrhich  can  decrease,  as  when  on  seeing  a  man  it  can 
form  the  idea  of  a  dwarf;  and  increase,  as  when  it  can  form  the 
idea  of  a  giant ;  or  separate,  as  when  it  sees  a  man  it  can  form 
an  imago  of  his  liead  ;  or  compound,  as  when  it  puts  a  hundred 
hands  on  man,  and  forms  the  idea  of  a  Briareus.  It  should  be 
observed  that  the  imagination  can  never  go  beyond  the  rearrange- 
ment of  the  materials  supplied  by  the  original  sources  of  knowledge. 
The  mind  can  further  discover  a  number  of  relations  among  the 
objects  primitively  known.  These  I  have  endeavoured  to  classify. 
In  particular,  out  of  the  concrete  it  can  form  innumerable  abstracts, 
and  from  the  siugulars  construct  an  indefinite  number  of  universals. 
It  should  be  observed  that  man's  power  of  imagination  and  corre- 
lation extends  over  his  moral  convictions  as  well  as  his  intellectual 
cognitions.  Thus,  he  can  clothe  the  hero  of  a  romance  in  various 
kinds  of  moral  excellence  of  which  we  have  discovered  the  rudi- 
ments in  ourselves  or  otiiers,  and  perceive  relations  among  the  moral 
properties  which  have  fallen  under  his  notice.  These  are  the  limits 
to  man's  capacity  of  forming  ideas,  determined,  first,  by  his  original 
powers  of  cognition,  and,  secondly,  by  his  powers  of  imagination 
and  correlation. 

3.  Our  beliefs,  it  is  evident,  may  go  beyond  our  cognitions.  Still 
there  are  stringent  limits  set  to  them  in  our  very  nature  and  con- 
stitution. Thus,  we  can  never  believe  anything  in  opposition  to 
self-evident  and  necessary  truths.  There  are  beliefs  wliich  are  in 
our  very  mental  make  and  frame,  and  ^vhich  are  altogether  beyond 
our  voluntary  power.  If  we  except  these,  however,  our  power  of 
possible  belief  is  wide  as  our  capacity  of  forming  ideas.     If  it  is 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  293 

asked  what  we  should  believe  within  these  limits  ?  the  answer  is, 
Only  what  has  evidence  to  plead  in  its  behalf,  what  has  self-evidence 
or  mediate  evidence.  Metaphysics,  with  their  tests,  can  determine 
what  truths  are  to  be  received  on  their  own  authority  ;  as  to  the 
kind  and  amount  of  evidence  recpiired  in  derivative  truth,  this  can 
be  settled  only  by  the  canons  of  the  special  departments  of  inves- 
tigation, historical  or  physical. 

But  do  our  beliefs  ever  go  beyond  our  ideas  ?  This  is  a  very 
curious  question,  and  diflferent  persons  will  be  disposed  to  give 
different  answers  to  it.  It  seems  clear  to  me  that  every  belief 
must  be  a  belief  in  something  of  which  we  have  some  sort  of  con- 
ception. A  belief  in  nothing  would  not  deserve  to  be  called  a 
belief,  and  a  belief  in  something  of  which  we  have  no  apprehen- 
sion would  be  equivalent  to  a  belief  in  nothing.  But  it  will  be 
urged  that  every  man  must  believe  in  certain  great  truths  regard- 
ing eternity,  of  which  he  has  no  conception,  and  that  the  Christian 
in  particular  has  such  a  truth  in  which  he  firmly  believes,  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Still,  I  maintain  that  even  in  such  a  case 
there  is  an  apprehension  or  conception.  Thus,  in  regard  to  infinity, 
we  apprehend  space  or  time,  or  God,  who  inhabits  all  space  and 
time,  stretching  away  further  and  further  ;  but  far  as  we  go,  we 
apprehend  and  believe  that  there  is  and  must  be  a  space,  a  time,  a 
living  Being  beyond.  Or  we  apprehend  a  spiritual  God,  Vvith  attri- 
butes, say  of  power  and  love  ;  and  we  strive  to  conceive  of  Him, 
and  of  these  perfections  ;  and  we  believe  of  Him  and  His  power  and 
goodness  that  they  transcend  all  our  feeble  attempts  at  comprehen- 
sion. In  every  supposable  case  of  belief  we  have  an  appreliension 
of  some  kind.  A  traveller  tells  us  that  he  saw  in  Africa  a  mon- 
strous animal,  which  he  cannot  describe  so  as  to  enable  us  to  com- 
prehend it ;  we  understand  the  man's  language,  and  if  we  liave 
reason  to  look  upon  him  as  trustworthy,  we  believe  his  statement ; 
but  in  doing  so  our  belief  goes  upon  the  apprehension  of  an  animal 
different  from  all  otlicr  animals.  An  inspired  writer  tells  us  about 
there  being  three  persons  in  one  Godhead  ;  and,  having  evidence 
of  his  inspiration,  we  believe  him  :  but  cvcn'here  there  is  an  appre- 
hension ;  there  is  a  conception  of  the  God  of  truth  as  revealing  the 
truth.     There  is  more  ;    this  revelation   is  contained  in  words  of 


294  3IETJPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

■wliicli  wo,  form  poiiic  sort  of  apprehension  :  thus,  wc  arc  told  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  God  ;  tliat  lie  became  man  ;  and  yet  we  discover 
that  He  is  somehow  or  other  different  from  God  the  Fatlier.  Thus 
in  all  our  beliefs  there  seems  to  be  a  conception  of  something,  and 
of  something  real  and  existing  ;  but  still  it  may  be  of  something 
conceived  by  us  as  having  qualities  which  pass  beyond  our  com- 
prehension, or  qualities  of  which  wc  have  no  comprehension. 

Some  of  these  conceptions,  with  their  attached  beliefs,  are  those 
which  raise  np  within  us  the  feeling  of  the  sublime,  and  are,  of  all 
others,  the  most  fitted  to  elevate  tlie  soul  of  man.  Need  I  add  that 
it  is  possible  for  us  to  believe  in  truths  which  we  cannot  reconcile 
■\vith  other  truths  of  sense  or  understanding  ?  It  is  wrong  in  us, 
indeed,  to  believe  in  a  proposition  unsupported  by  evidence  ;  but 
when  it  is  properly  sustained,  and  when  especially  it  is  seen  to  have 
the  sanction  of  God,  then  the  mind  asserts  its  prerogative  of  belief, 
even  when  the  truth  transcends  all  sense,  all  personal,  all  human 
experience,  nay,  even  when  it  is  encompassed  with  darkness  and 
difficulties  on  every  side.  Faith  feels  that  it  is  in  one  of  its  highest 
exercises  when  founding  on  the  authority  of  God  ;  it  believes  not 
indeed  in  contradictions  (which  it  can  never  do),  but  in  truths 
which  it  cannot  reconcile  with  the  appearance  of  things,  or  with 
other  truths  which  the  reason  sanctions. 


SECT.    IV.— RELATION   OF  INTUITION   AND   EXPERIENCE. 

Wc  must  now  dive  into  the  subject  whose  depths  the  great 
Teutonic  metaphysician  sought  to  sound  ;  not  that  Kant  spoke 
much  of  it  in  the  intercourse  with  his  friends,  but  he  was  for  ever 
pondering  on  it  as  he  sat  in  his  bachelor  domicile,  as  he  paced 
forward  and  backward  in  his  favourite  walk  in  the  suburbs  of 
Konigsberg,  as  he  lectured  to  his  class,  or  elaborated  his  publislied 
writings.  The  general  question  embraces  several  special  ones, 
which  must  be  carefully  distinguished.  In  seeking  to  settle  these, 
•we  must  always  have  it  fixed  in  our  minds  in  what  sense  we  em- 
ploy the  word  "  experience  ;"  for  the  plirase  may  be  understood  in 
narrower  or  in  wider  significations.  It  may  be  confined  to  the 
outward  fact  known  or  apprehended,  or  it  may  also  embrace  the 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  295 

inward  consciousness.  It  may  mean  mere  personal  experience,  or 
it  may  contain  the  whole  gathered  experience  of  mankind.  It  has 
been  employed  to  stand  for  the  experience  of  sense,  and  it  has 
been  so  enlarged  as  to  conspire  all  that  we  can  know  or  feel  by 
any  or  all  of  our  cognitive  powers,  such  as  consciousness  and  con- 
science. In  tills  section  I  use  it  to  express  all  that  comes  into 
consciousness  ;  for,  properly  speaking,  there  is  no  experience  till 
the  fact  is  perceived  within.  Taken  in  this  sense  it  would  be 
nearer  the  truth,  that  is,  would  embrace  a  larger  portion  of  truth, 
were  we  to  say  that  our  knowledge  and  ideas  are  drawn  from  the 
experience  of  consciousness,  rather  than  from  the  experience  of 
sense.  We  cannot  reproduce  things  in  idea,  we  cannot  generalize 
any  conglomerate  of  facts  till  they  have  been  in  consciousness, 
into  which,  however,  they  must  have  come  by  a  cognitive  power, 
which  is  therefore  the  true  source  of  knowledge.  Wlien  I  limit 
the  phrase  "  experience"  to  a  particular  class  of  apprehended  facts, 
I  will  give  notice  by  an  epithet  or  explanatory  clause.  If  it  be 
needful  to  fix  steadily  in  how  wide  a  sense  we  use  "  experience,"  it 
is  still  more  essential  to-  determine  under  what  particular  aspect 
we  view  intuition,  when  we  would  consider  its  relations  to  expe- 
rience. We  have  seen,  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  treatise  (Part  i. 
Book  II.  Chap.  i.  sect.  2),  that  Intuition  may  be  contemplated  under 
three  general  aspects,— as  a  body  of  regulative  principles,  as  spon- 
taneous convictions,  and  as  generalized  maxims.  Under  each  of 
these,  Experience  stands  in  a  different  relation  to  Intuition. 

I.  Let  us  consider  the  relation  of  Experience  to  Intuition,  con- 
sidered as  a  body  of  Regulative  Principles.  In  this  sense  intui- 
tion, being  native  and  original,  is  prior  to  experience  of  every  kind, 
personal  or  general.  So  far  from  depending  on  what  we  have 
passed  through,  our  intuitions  arc  a  powerful  means  of  prompting 
to  the  acquisition  of  experience  ;  for,  being  in  the  mind  as  natural 
inclinations  and  aptitudes,  they  are  ever  instigating  to  action. 
All  of  them  seek  for  objects,  and  are  gratified  when  the  proper 
objects  are  presented.  Just  as  the  eye  was  given  us  to  sec,  and 
liglit  is  felt  to  be  pleasant  to  the  eyes,  so  tlie  cognitive  powers 
were  given  us  in  order  to  lead  to  tlie  acquisition  of  knowledge, 


29G  METAPHYSICS.  [part  in. 

ami  they  arc  i)loabcd  wlicii  knowledge  is  furnished.  Our  belief 
as  to  the  boundlessness  of  space  is  ever  alluring  us  to  explore  it 
in  earth  and  sea,  and  in  the  deep  expanse  of  heaven ;  and  our 
belief  in  time  without  beginning  and  without  end  is  ever  tempt- 
ing us  to  go  back  through  all  the  years  which  human  history  opens 
to  us,  and  beyond  these,  through  all  the  ages  which  geology  dis- 
closes, and  to  look  forward,  as  far  as  human  foresight  and  Bible 
prophecy  may  enable  us,  into  the  dim  events  of  the  future.  Thus, 
too,  our  minds  delight  to  discover  substances  acting  according  to 
their  properties,  and  plants  and  animals  developing  according  to 
the  life  that  is  in  them,  to  find  species  and  genera  in  the  whole 
organic  kingdoms,  to  trace  mathematical  relations  corresponding  to 
our  higher  intellectual  cravings  among  all  the  objects  presenting 
tliemsclvcs  on  the  earth  and  in  the  starry  heavens,  and  to  rise 
from  near  effects  to  remote  causes  in  space  and  time.  Nor  is  it  to 
be  omitted  that  our  moral  convictions  prompt  us  to  look  for,  and 
when  we  have  found  Him,  to  look  up  to  a  Moral  Governor  of  the 
universe,  and  to  anticipate  of  Him  that  He  will  be  ready  to  support 
tlie  innocent  sufferer,  and  to  punish  the  wicked.  It  should  be 
added,  that  in  experience  we  are  ever  finding  a  gratifying  exempli- 
fication of  our  native  tendencies,  and  a  satisfying  corroboration 
of  our  intuitive  expectations.  We  expect  a  cause  to  turn  up  for 
this  mysterious  occurrence  ;  we  may  be  disappointed  at  first,  but 
in  due  time  it  appears.  We  anticipate  that  this  secret  deed  of 
villany  will  be  detected  and  exposed  ;  and  so  we  are  amazed  for  a 
season  when  we  hear  of  the  perpetrator  flattered  by  tlie  w^orld,  and 
seemingly  favoured  in  tlie  providence  of  God  ;  but  our  moral  con- 
Aictions  are  vindicated  when  the  wicked  man  is  at  last  caught  in 
the  net  which  had  all  along  been  weaving  for  him,  and  all  his  ill- 
gotten  spoils  are  made  to  add  to  the  weight  of  his  ignominy,  and 
to  embitter  his  disgrace. 

II.  Let  us  consider  the  relation  of  Experience  to  our  Intuitive 
Convictions  as  these  arc  manifested  in  Consciousness.  We  have 
now  a  more  complicated  scries  of  circumstances  to  look  at  and  to 
weigh.  Under  this  head  we  cannot  speak  of  intuition  and  experi- 
imce  as  being  opposed;    every  conviction,  be  it  of  sense  or  con- 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOG  Y.  297 

sciousness,  of  tlie  understanding  or  of  conscience,  is  an  experience. 
It  is  in  itself  an  experience,  and  it  is  an  experience  wliicli  can  be 
generalized. 

So  far,  all  is   clear  enough.      The   diflBculty  and  the   confusion 
arise  wlien  we  contemplate  the  relation  of  experience  to  the  forth- 
coming of  the  regulative  principle .  into  action,  and  into  conscious- 
ness.     There  is  a  sense  in  which   experience  is  required  in  order 
to  such  manifestation.      Thus,  in  some  cases,  the  mental  intuition 
is  called  forth  by  an  external  stimulus  ;  it  is  thus  that  our  knowl- 
edge of  body  is  evoked  by  an  action  of  the  bodily  senses.    It  is 
to  be  observed,  however,  in  regard  to   all  such   cases,  that  it  is 
scarcely  correct  to  represent  the  intuition  as  depending  on  experi- 
ence ;  it  depends,  no  doubt,  on  an  outward  stimulus  as  an  essential 
part  of  the  concause,  but  the  action  can  scarcely  be  called  experi- 
ence, for  there   is   nothing   in   consciousness  till  the  intuition  is  in 
energy.     The  proper  statement  is  that  there  must  be  the  concur- 
rence of  an  outward  action,  in  order  to  the  rise  of  the  inward  con- 
viction.    Again,  it  is  a  fact  that  all  our  intuitions  relate,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  objects  which  have  become   known  by  sensation 
and  reflection,  in  the  sense  explained  in  the  two  preceding  sections. 
But  in  estimating  this  circumstance,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
sensation   and    reflection    are    themselves  intuitions,   and   comprise 
very  deep  convictions.     Once  more,  there  are  cases  in  which  the 
intuition  is   called   into    exercise  by  the   representations  or  appre- 
hensions that  have  risen  up  in  the  mind.     This  is  the  case  with 
all  our  primitive  beliefs,  judgments,  and  moral  convictions  ;    they 
all  depend  on  previous  cognitions,  and  our  judgments  may  further 
depend  on  beliefs.     Thus  it  is  when  we  contemplate  an  object  as 
extended,  and  an   event   as  happening  in  time,  that  our  intuitive 
convictions  as  to  space  and  time  spring  up ;  it  is  when  we  consider 
two  straight  lines,  that  we   proclaim   that  they  cannot   enclose  a 
space.     Thus  it  is  when  we  look  to  objects  grouped  into  classes, 
that  we  declare  that  whatever  is   predicated  of  tlie   class  may  be 
predicated  of  all  the  members  of  the   class.     Thus  it  is  when  we 
look  to  certain  voluntary  acts  of  intelligent  beings,  that  we  regard 
them  as  good  or  evil,  rcwardable  or  punishable.     In  regard  then 
to  all  intellectual   beliefs   and  judgments,  and  to  all   moral  cogni- 


298  METAPHYSICS.  [part  iii. 

tions,  beliefs,  and  judgments,  there  must  alwaj'S  be  an  experience 
on  wluL'li  tliey  proceed.  But,  in  making  this  statement,  let  it  be 
observed  first,  that  the  experience  may  not  be  one  of  sense.  Thus, 
our  moral  convictions  proceed,  not  on  an  outward  sensation,  but 
on  a  voluntary  action  being  presented  to  the  moral  power.-  It  is 
to  be  further  taken  into  account  that  tlie  beliefs  and  judgments 
may  often  proceed  on  an  experience  which  is  itself  intuitive.  I 
proceed  upon  an  intuitive  conviction  regarding  time  when  I  declare 
it  to  be  infinite,  and  on  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  extension,  when 
I  affirm  that  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points  is  a  straight 
line.  It  thus  appears,  in  regard  to  our  spontaneous  convictions, 
that  there  is  no  proper  opposition  between  experience  and  intuition  ; 
that  we  must  beware  of  making  sweeping  declarations  in  the  idea 
that  they  will  apply  to  all  instances ;  that  in  most  cases  there  is  a 
complex  cooperation  of  the  two  ;  and  that  we  must  consider  each 
class  of  cases  separately,  in  order  to  determine  what  is  the  precise 
nature  of  the  relation. 

III.  Let  us  consider  the  relation  of  Experience  to  Intuitive 
Maxims  which  are  Generalized  Intuitions.  In  order  to  reach  these 
experience,  the  experience  of  individual  convictions,  is  always  neces- 
sary, is  indeed  an  indispensable  condition.  The  maxim  is  just  the 
generalization  of  the  experiences.  These,  however,  are  not  observed 
facts,  but  judgments,  which  do  indeed  look  at  objects,  but  are  in 
themselves  intuitive,  that  is,  are  pronounced  on  the  bare  contempla- 
tion of  the  objects. 

And  so  we  must  ever  distinguish  between  two  sorts  of  general 
laws.  One  kind  is  obtained  from  facts  external  or  internal,  one 
or  both,  whicli  may  have  fallen  under  our  notice,  no  matter  how, 
through  our  own  experience  or  through  that  of  others  also.  It  is 
thus  that  we  reach  the  law  that  monocotyledonous  plants  have 
parallel-veined  leaves  ;  that  the  positive  poles  of  a  magnet  repel 
each  other  ;  and  that  ideas  which  have  at  any  time  coexisted  in 
the  mind  tend  to  recall  each  other.  But  we  can  reach  a  higher 
order  of  general  truths.  Discovering  by  bare  contemplation  that 
these  two  parallel  lines,  however  prolonged,  cannot  approach  nearer 
each  other,  and  that  we  would  pronounce  the  same  decision  as  to 


BOOK  l]  GNOSIOLOGY.  299 

any  other  set  of  parallel  lines,  we  declare  of  parallel  lines  generally, 
that  they  wiil  never  meet.  Looking  at  a  given  individual  sin,  the 
conscience  proclaims  that  it  merits  condemnation  ;  and  as  it  would 
do  the  same  as  to  every  other  violation  of  the  moral  law,  we  reach 
the  general  maxim  that  all  sin  is  of  evil  desert. 

For  laws  so  different  in  their  nature  and  in  the  manner  of  their 
being  reached,  it  is  desirable  to  have  a  difference  of  appellatiou  or 
nomenclature.  The  one  class  may  be  described  as  obtained  from 
observed  facts,  the  other,  as  derived  from  primitive  judgments.  The 
one  may  be  called  Inductive  Laws,  the  other  Intuitive.  Maxims 
or  Axioms.  The  one  may  be  designated  as  Observational,  the 
other  as  Necessaet  Truth. 

The  one  kind  of  laws  may  or  may  not  hold  good  beyond  the 
limits  of  experience.  We  may  be  able  to  say  of  some  of  them,  as 
of  the  law  of  universal  gravitation,  that  they  are  wide  as  the 
cosmos  open  to  human  observation  ;  but  we  are  not  entitled  to 
affirm  dogmatically  that  they  do,  or  that  they  must  pervade  all 
space.  It  is  a  general  rule  that  the  leaves  of  monocotyledons  have 
parallel  veins  ;  but  the  arum  and  some  other  plants  proceeding 
from  one  seed-lobe  have  netted  venation.  There  may  be  worlds 
in  which  substances  obey  very  different  magnetic  laws  from  those 
to  which  they  are  subject  in  our  earth.  It  is  quite  possible  that, 
in  other  parts  of  the  universe,  there  may  be  intelligent  creatures 
whose  ideas  follow  an  order  of  succession  very  different  from  those 
of  human  beings.  But  it  is  true  over  all  our  earth,  and  must  be  true 
in  all  other  worlds  as  well  as  in  this,  that  cruelty  is  a  sin.  Present 
to  the  mind  a  phenomenon,  that  is,  a  new  object  or  occurrence,  and 
it  insists  that  it  must  have  had  a  cause,  and  this  whether  it  be 
within  or  beyond  the  range  of  our  experience. 

Considered  under  this  aspect,  the  opposition  is  not  between 
experience  and  intuition,  but  between  a  Gathered  Experience 
and  Generalized  Intuitions. 

SECT.   V.-ON  THE  NECESSITY  ATTACHED  TO  OUR  PRIMARY  CONVICTIONS. 

We  have  seen  throughout  the  whole  of  this  treatise  that  a 
conviction  of   necessity  attaches  to    all    our    original    cognitions. 


300  METAPHYSICS.  [part  m. 

beliefs,  and  judgments,  both  intellectual  and  moral.  But  we  may 
find  ourselves  in  hopeless  perplexities,  or  even  in  a»  network  of 
contradictions,  unless  we  determine  precisely  to  what  it  is  that 
the  necessity  adheres.  The  proper  account  is,  that  the  necessity 
covers  tlie  ground  which  the  conviction  occupies, — neither  less  nor 
more.  AVe  may  err,  cither  by  contracting  it  within  a  narrower,  or 
stretching  it  over  a  wider  surface.  It  follows  that  if  we  would 
determine  how  far  the  necessity  extends,  we  must  carefully  and 
exactly  ascertain  w^hat  is  the  nature  of  the  native  conviction,  and 
what  arc  the  objects  at  whicli  it  looks. 

And  this  requires  us  to  specify  with  precision  what  we  cannot 
do  in  regard  to  necessary  truth.  A  common  account  is  that  we 
cannot  "  conceive"  the  contradictory  of  such  truth.  But  the  word 
"conceive"  is  ambiguous,  and  in  itself  means  nothing  more  than 
"  image"  or  "  apprehend,"  that  is,  have  a  notion ;  and  certainly  we 
are  not  entitled  to  appeal  to  a  mere  phantasm  or  concept  as  a  test 
of  ultimate  truth.'  The  exact  account  is  that  we  cannot  be  con- 
vinced of  the  opposite  of  the  intuitive  conviction.  But  our 
intuitive  convictions  may  take  the  form  of  cognitions,  or  beliefs, 
or  judgments  ;  and,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  intuition,  that  is, 
according  as  it  is  knowledge,  or  faith,  or  comparison,  is  the  nature 
of  the  necessity  attached.  Whatever  we  Jcnoiv  intuitively  as  existing, 
we  cannot  be  made  to  know  as  not  existing.  Whatever  we  intuitively 
helieve,  we  cannot  be  made  not  to  believe.  When  we  intuitively 
discover  a  relation  in  objects,  we  cannot  be  made  to  judge  that 
there  is  not  a  relation.  From  neglecting  these  distinctions,  whicli 
are  very  obvious  when  stated,  manifold  errors  have  arisen,  not  only 
in  the  application  of  the  test  of  necessity,  but  in  the  general 
account  given  of  primary  truths.  When  we  take  them  along  with 
us,  the  test  of  necessity  admits  of  an  application  at  once  easy  and 
certain. 

1.  Beginning  with  our  Cognitions,  the  conviction  is  that  the 
object  exists  at  the  time  we  perceive  it,  and  has  the  qualities  we 
discover  in  it.     This  implies,  according  to  the  law  of  identity  (in 

1  Dr.  Whewell  is  continually  using  man's  capacity  of  "  conceiving"  as  a  test,  and  by  the 
ambiguity  of  the  word  has  exposed  himself  to  the  strictures  of  Mr.  Mill,  who,  however, 
should  not  be  regarded  as  establishing  his  point  because  he  has  fixed  on  some  of  the 
weaknesses  of  bis  opponent. 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  301 

the  form  of  non-controdidion),  thai  it  is  not  possible  that  it  should 
not  be  existing,  and  that  it  should  not  be  in  possession  of  these 
qualities  at  the  time  it  falls  under  our  notice.  But  it  does  not 
imply  that  the  object  has  a  necessary  or  an  eternal  existence.  It 
does  not  imply  that  the  object  must  have  existed  in  all  other,  or 
in  any  other  circumstances.  For  aught  our  conviction  says,  the 
object  in  otlier  positions,  or  with  a  different  set  of  preexisting 
causes,  might  not  have  existed  at  all,  or  might  have  liad  a  different 
set  of  qualities.  But  while  the  necessity  does  not  roach  further,  it 
always  extends  as  far  as  the  perception;  thus  it  demands  that 
body  be  regarded  by  us  as  extended  and  as  resisting  pressure,  that 
self  be  looked  on  as  capable  of  such  qualities  as  thought  and  feel- 
ing, and  tliat  the  properties  of  body  and  mind  should  not  be  regarded 
as  produced  by  our  contemplation  of  them. 

2.  Coming  now  to  our  original  Beliefs,  it  has  been  shown  in  regard 
to  them,  that  while  they  proceed  on  our  Cognitions,  they  go  beyond 
them,  go  beyond  the  noiv  and  the  present,— declaring,  for  instance, 
of  time  and  space,  that  they  must  transcend  our  widest  phantasms 
or  conceptions  of  them,  and  that  they  are  such  that  no  space  or  time 
could  be  added  to  tliem.  And  as  far  as  the  conviction  goes,  so  far 
does  the  necessity  extend. 

3'.  The  necessity  attached  to  our  Judgments  is  in  like  manner 
exactly  coincident  with  them.  These  imply  objects  on  which  they 
arc  pronounced.  At  the  same  time,  the  judgment,  with  its  adhering 
necessity,  has  a  regard  not  to  the  objects  directly,  but  to  the  rela- 
tion of  the  objects.  These  objects  may  be  real,  or  they  may  be 
imaginary.  I  may  pronounce  Chimborazo  to  be  higher  than  Mont 
Blanc,  but  I  may  also  affirm  of  a  mountain  100,000  feet  high  that 
it  is  higher  than  one  50,000  feet  high.  As  to  whether  the  objects 
are  or  are  not  real,  tliis  is  a  question  to  be  settled  by  our  cognitions 
and  beliefs,  original  and  acquired,  and  by  inferences  from  them. 
But  it  is  to  be  carefully  observed,  that  even  when  the  object  is 
imaginary,  the  judgment  proceeds  on  a  cognition  of  the  elements 
of  the  objects.  Thus,  having  known  what  is  the  size  of  a  man,  we 
affirm  of  a  giant,  who  is  greater  than  a  common  man,  that  he  is 
greater  than  a  dwarf,  who  is  smaller  tlian  ordinary  humanity. 
Still,  the   necessity  in  the  judgment  does  not  of  itself  imply  the 


302  METAPHYSICS.  [part  ni. 

exiotoucc  of  the  objects,  still  less  any  necessary  existence  ;  all  that 
it  proclaims  is,  that  the  objects  might  exist  out  of  materials  which 
•have  fallen  under  our  notice,  and  that  the  objects,  being  so  and  so, 
must  have  sucli  a  relation. 

In  a  sense,  then,  our  primitive  judgments  are  hypothetical ;  the 
objects  being  so,  must  have  a  particular  connexion.  There  may 
be,  or  they  may  never  have  been,  two  exactly  parallel  lines ;  what 
our  intuitive  judgment  declares  is,  that  if  there  be  such,  they  can 
never  meet.  A  similar  remark  may  be  made  of  every  other  class 
of  intuitive  comparisons.  There  may  or  there  may  not  be  a  sea  in 
the  moon  ;  but  if  there  be,  its  waters  must  be  extended,  and  can 
resist  pressure.  There  may  or  there  may  not  be  inhabitants  in  the 
planet  Jupiter  ;  but  if  there  be,  they  must  have  been  created  by  a 
power  competent  to  the  operation.  But  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind, 
that  when  the  objects  exist,  the  judgments,  with  their  accompanying 
necessity,  apply  to  them.' 

A  distinction  has  been  drawn  between  truths  which  relate  to 
matters  of  fact  and  those  which  are  of  an  abstract  character.''  I 
liave  seldom,  however,  seen  the  difference  between  them  clearly 
and  accurately  pointed  out.  The  proper  account  is,  that  in  the 
one  we  look  at  individual  objects,  and  discover  that  they  exist  or 
possess  certain  qualities ;  whereas  in  the  otlier  we  look  at  relations, 
which  must  always,  however,  be  the  relations  of  objects.  In  look- 
ing at  the  relations,  we  cannot  consider  them  apart  from  all 
objects  (for  we  have  seen,  supra,  pp.  136,  217,  that  the  abstract 
always  implies  the  concrete)  ;  we  can  merely  contemplate  them 
apart  from  any  given  object.  Being  in  a  sense  independent  of 
objects,  such  truths  have  been  represented  as  in  a  special  manner 
necessary  and  eternal.  But  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  test 
of  necessity,  as  above  explained,  applies  not  only  to  the  abstract 
truths,  but  to  those  wliich  relate  to  matters  of  fact.  And  while 
abstract  truths  are  independent  of  any  particular  objects,  they  ever 
presuppose  objects,  for  tliey  relate  to  tlie  relations  of  objects,  real 

'  D.  Stewart  makes  inatliematical  truth  merely  h)'pothetical,  that  is,  "  the  proportions 
which  we  demonstrate  only  assert  a  connexion  between  certain  suppositions  and  certain 
consequences"  {Elem.  Vol.  ii.  Chap,  ii.)  lie  forgets  that  the  hypothesis,  that  is,  definitions, 
have  a  reality,  as  being  abstractions  from  real  things.    See  infra.  Part  iii.  Book  ii.  Chap.  iii. 

'  See  Keid's  Coll.  WorJ:s,  p.  442,  and  Hamilton's  Dissertations,  Appendix,  p.  754. 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  303 

or  imaginary,  and  the  general  proposition,  were  there  no  objects, 
would  have  no  meaning,  and  it  holds  true  as  to  all  objects  which 
have  the  relations. 

And  here  I  am  tempted  to  say  a  word  on  a  question  of  nomen- 
clature. Throughout  this  treatise  the  phrase  "intuition"  has  been 
applied  to  our  primitive  cognitions  and  primitive  beliefs,  as  well 
as  our  primitive  judgments.  But  as  there  is  a  difference  between 
intuition  as  directed  to  individual  objects  and  as  directed  to  the 
comparison  of  objects,  I  have  sometimes  thought,  when  it  is  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  them,  "  Intuitive  Perceptions"  might  be  the  more 
appropriate  phrase  for  the  one,  and  "  Intuitive  Reason"  for  the  other. 

4.  It  holds  good  also  of  our  Moral  Perceptions,  that  the  neces- 
sity is  as  wide  as  our  conviction,  but  no  wider.  It  implies  that 
the  good  or  evil  is  a  real  quality  of  certain  voluntary  acts  of  ours, 
and  this  whether  we  view  it  or  not,  and  independent  of  the  view 
we  take  of  it.  It  involves  that  certain  actions  are  good  or  evil, 
whenever  or  wherever  they  are  performed,  in  this  laud  or  other 
lands,  in  this  world  or  other  worlds.  Rising  beyond  cognitions 
and  beliefs,  the  mind  can  pronounce  moral  judgments  on  certain 
acts  apprehended  by  it.  These  judgments  do  not  imply  the  exist- 
ence of  the  objects  ;  but  the  decision  will  apply  to  the  realities, 
if  there  be  such.  Thus,  there  may  or  may  not  be  ungodliness  or 
ingratitude  in  the  planet  Saturn  ;  but  if  there  be  such  a  thing,  we 
declare  that  it  must  be  evil  and  condemnable.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  our  moral  convictions  do  not  imply  that  we  shall  certainly 
practise  the  good,  or  that  all  must  be  morally  good  which  men 
declare  to  be  so. 

As  soon  as  our  original  cognition  or  belief  assures  us  of  the 
existence  of  an  object  with  certain  qualities,  or  as  a  judgment 
affirms  a  necessary  relation,  the  law  of  identity  comes  into  opera- 
tion, and  insists  on  our  keeping  truth  consistent  with  itself;  and 
in  particular,  the  law  of  non- contradiction  restricts  us  from  think- 
ing or  believing  the  opposite  of  the  truth  apprclicnded.  When  wc 
know  that  self  exists,  we  cannot  be  made  to  think  that  self  does 
not  exist.  Constrained  to  look  on  time  as  without  limits,  we  at 
once  deny  that  it  can  have  limits.  Deciding  that  every  effect  has 
a  cause,  wc  cannot  be  made  to  believe  that  it  has  not  had  a  cause. 


30t  3IETAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

Wc  have  a  conviction  that  murdor  is  a  crime,  and  cannot  be  made 
to  decide  tliat  it  is  not.  Wc  liavc  tlius  necessity  in  two  forms  as 
a  tc<t  of  fundamental  truth  ;  in  its  original  or  positive,  and  also  in 
a  ncgatiYG  form,  founded  on  the  law  of  non-contradiction.  In  no 
case  can  the  conviction  be  wrought  in  us  that  what  we  intuitively 
know  or  believe  to  exist  does  not  exist,  or  that  tlie  contradictory  of 
a  primitive  judgment  can  possibly  be  true.* 

It  has  been  remarked  by  metaphysicians  that  in  some  cases  we 
can  conceive  the  opposite  of  a  necessary  truth,  while  in  others  we 
cannot.  The  account  given  above  enables  us  to  see  how  this 
should  be,  and  determines  whence  the  differences,  and  how  far  it 
extends.  In  the  case  of  our  primitive  cognitions  and  beliefs,  we 
can  image  or  apprehend  the  opposite  of  what  we  know  or  be- 
lieve. We  can  imagine  ourselves  not  existing  at  any  given  time, 
and  that  an  event  remembered  by  us  did  not  occur.  '  We  can  con- 
ceive, too,  thougli  often  with  some  difiiculty,  the  contradictory  of 
Sjathetic  judgments  a  priori ;  thus  we  can  apprehend  (tliough  we 
can  never  decide  or  believe)  that  there  should  be  a  change  without 
a  cause.  But,  in  the  case  of  analytic  judgments  (see  supra,  p. 
214),  we  camiot  so  much  as  conceive  them  contradictory.  The 
reason  is  obvious.  The  judgment  pronounced  is  implied  in  the 
subject  in  regard  to  w^hich  the  predication  is  made  ;  and  the  denial 
of  the  proposition  would  be  destructive  of  the  notion  with  wliich 
we  start.  We  cannot  conceive  of  an  island  that  it  should  not  be 
surrounded  by  water,  for  were  it  not  so  enclosed,  it  would  not  be 
an  island. 

I  Logicians  lay  down  the  important  principles  as  to  contradictory  propositions,  that  the 
one  or  other  must  be  true ;  that  both  cannot  be  true,  nor  both  false ;  that  the  truth  of 
the  one  implies  the  falsehood  of  the  other;  and  that  the  falsehood  of  the  one  implies  the 
truth  of  the  other.  When  the  subject  of  the  proposition  is  a  common  notion,  there  is  a 
distinction  between  contrary  and  contradictory  opposition.  When  it  is  said,  "All  men 
are  liars,"  the  contrary  is,  "  No  men  are  liars"  (which  may  both  be  false),  and  the  con- 
tradictory, "Some  men  are  not  liars."  But  in  singular  judgments,  that  is,  when  the 
subject  is  a  singular  notion,  there  is  no  difference  between  contraries  and  contradictories. 
"Wellington  was  the  conqueror  at  Waterloo."  Of  this  proposition,  "Wellington  was 
not  the  conqueror  at  Waterloo"  is  the  contradictory,  as  well  as  the  contrary.  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  has  given  us  glimpses  of  some  great  axiom,  which  he  thinl^s  may  be  regarded  as 
the  regulating  principle  of  all  tliought :  "That  all  that  is  conceivable  lies  in  the  proper 
conditioning  of  one  or  other  of  two  contradictory  extremes,  each  of  which  is  inconceivable, 
but  one  or  other  of  which,  from  the  law  of  contradiction,  must  be  true."  I  have  already 
remarked  on  inconceivable  propositions  (p.  104).  The  truth  in  the  axiom  is  simply,  that  to 
every  proposition  there  is  a  contradictory  form ;  but  this  is  not  a  regulating  principle  of 
truth;  it  merely  results  from  the  nature  of  propositions. 


BOOK  I.]  GN0SI0L0G7.  305 

It  should  be  noticed  tliat  the  conviction  of  necessity  follows  con- 
viction wherever  it  is  found.  In  what  is  technically  called  demon- 
strative or  apodictic  reasoning,  all  the  new  steps  are  seen  to  be  true 
intuitively,  and  the  necessity  goes  through  the  whole  process  step  by 
step.  Thus  the  necessity  adheres  not  only  to  the  axioms  of  Euclid, 
but  goes  on  to  the  last  proposition  of  the  last  book.  It  is  the  same 
in  all  other  sciences  which  are  demonstrative,  as  Ethics  and  Logic 
are  to  a  limited  extent ;  the  necessity  adheres  to  whatever  is  drawn 
from  first  truths  by  intuitive  principles.  It  is  needful  to  add,  that 
in  mixed  processes,  in  which  there  is  both  intuition  and  experience 
in  the  results  reached,  the  necessity  sticks  merely  to  the  intuitive 
part,  and  does  not  guarantee  the  whole.  I  suppose  there  is  no  doubt 
of  tlie  accuracy  of  the  mathematiQal  demonstrations  employed  by 
Eourier  in  his  disquisitions  about  heat,  but  there  are  disputes  as  to 
some  of  the  assumptions  on  which  his  calculations  proceed.  We 
have  here  a  source  of  error.  In  processes  into  which  intuition  enters, 
but  is  only  one  6f  the  elements,  persons  may  allot  to  tlie  whole  a 
certainty  which  can  be  claimed  only  in  behalf  of  one  of  the  parts. 

One  other  distinction  requires  to  be  drawn  under  this  head.  There 
are  cases  in  which  primitive  judgments  are  founded  on  primitive 
cognitions  and  beliefs,  and  are  thus  necessary  throughout.  It  is 
thus  that,  proceeding  on  our  primitive  knowledge  and  faith  as  to 
time,  we  declare  there  can  be  no  break  in  its  flowing  stream.  But 
in  other  cases  our  judgment  may  proceed  on  a  proposition  reached 
by  a  gathered  experience.  Thus,  having  found  that  laurel- water  is 
poisonous,  intuition  insists  that  he  w'ho  has  drunk  laurel-water  has 
drunk  poison.  The  necessity  here  simply  is,  that  the  conclusion 
follows  from  the  premises ;  and  the  conclusion  itself  is  as  certain  as 
the  observational  premiss,  neither  less  nor  more. 


20 


306  METAPHYSICS.  [PiRT  iii. 


SECT.  y\.-{SUFPLmFNTAEY.)-OT^  THE  DISTINCTIONS  BETWEEN  THE  UN- 
DERSTANDING AND  THE  REASON;  BETWEEN  A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTE- 
RIORI PRINCIPLES ;  BETWEEN  FORM  AND  MATTER ;  BETWEEN  SUBJEC- 
TIVE  AND  OBJECTIVE;  BETWEEN  THE  LOGICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL 
ORDER  OF  IDEAS;  BETWEEN  THE  CAUSE  AND  OCCASION  OF  INNATE 
IDEAS. 

We  are  now  in  circumstances  to  examine  certain  distinctions  wliicli  have 
been  drawn  by  the  supporters  of  innate  ideas,  or  intuitive  reason,  mainly  in 
order  to  reconcile  their  views  with  the  claims  of  experience. 

I.  There  is  the  Distinction  between  the  Understanding  and  the  Rea- 
son.— Milton  draws  the  distinction  between  reason  "  intuitive  "  and  "  discursive." 
Reid  and  Beattie  represent  Reason  as  having  two  degrees  :  in  the  former,  reason 
sees  the  truth  at  once ;  in  the  other,  it  reaches  it  by  a  process.  There  is  evi- 
dently ground  for  these  distinctions.  But  the  distinction  I  am  now  to  examine 
was  first  drawn  in  a  formal  manner  by  Kant,  and  has  since  assumed  divers 
shapes  in  Germany  and  in  this  country.  According  to  Kant,  the  mind  has 
three  general  intellectual  powers,  the  Sense,  the  Understanding  (Verstand), 
and  the  Reason  (Vemunft)  ;  the  Sense  giving  us  presentations  or  phenomena  ; 
the  Understanding  binding  these  by  categories  ;  and  the  Reason  bringing  the 
judgments  of  the  Understanding  to  unity  by  three  Ideas— of  Substance,  Totality 
of  Phenomena,  and  Deity— which  are  especially  the  Ideas  of  Reason.  The  dis- 
tinction was  introduced  among  the  English-speaking  nations  by  Coleridge,  who 
however  modified  it.  "  Reason,"  says  he,  "  is  the  power  of  universal  and  neces- 
sary convictions,  the  source  and  snbstance  of  truths  above  sense,  and  having 
their  evidence  iu  themselves.  Its  presence  is  always  marked  by  the  necessity 
of  the  positions  affirmed  "  {Aids  to  Eeflection,  1. 168).  It  has  become  an  accepted 
distinction  among  a  certain  class  of  metaphysicians  and  divines  all  over  Europe 
and  the  English-speaking  people  of  the  great  American  continent.  These  par- 
ties commonly  illustrate  their  views  in  some  such  way  as  the  following  : — The 
mind,  they  say,  must  have  some  power  by  which  it  gazes  immediately  on  the 
true  and  the  good.  But  sense,  which  looks  only  to  the  phenomenal  and  fluc- 
tuating, cannot  enable  us  to  do  so.  As  little  can  the  logical  understanding, 
whose  province  it  is  to  generalize  the  phenomena  of  sense,  mount  into  so  high 
a  sphere.  We  must  therefore  bring  in  a  transcendental  power — call  it  Reason, 
or  Intellectual  Intuition,  or  Faith,  or  Feeling — to  account  for  the  mind's  capac- 
ity of  discovering  the  universal  and  the  necessary,  and  of  gazing  at  once  on 
eternal  Truth  and  Goodness,  on  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute. 

Now  there  is  great  and  important  truth  aimed  at  and  meant  to  be  set  forth 
in  this  language.  The  speculators  of  France,  who  derive  all  our  notions  from 
sense,  and  those  of  Britain,  who  draw  all  our  maxims  from  experience,  are 
overlooking  the  most  wondrous  properties  of  the  soul,  which  has  principles  at 
once  deeper  and  higher  than  sense,  and  the  faculty  which  compounds  and  com- 
pares the  material  supplied  by  sense.  And  if  by  Reason  is  meant  the  aggregate 
of  Regulative  Principles,  I  have  no  objections  to  the  ijhrase,  and  to  certain 
important  applications  of  it,  but  then  we  must  keep  carefully  in  view  the  mode 
in  which  these  principles  operate. 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOLOGY.  307 

"We  may  mark  tlie  following  errors,  or  oversiglits,  in  the  school  referred  to  :- 
(1.)  Intuitive  Reason  is  not,  jDroperly  speaking,  opposed  to  Sense,  but  is  involved 
in  certain  exercises  of  sense.  There  is  knowledge,  and  this  intuitive,  in  all 
sense-perception.  It  may  be  proper  indeed  to  di-aw  the  distinction  between  the 
two  elements  which  are  indissolubly  wrapt  up  in  the  one  concrete  act.  Kant 
endeavoured  to  do  so,  but  gave  a  perversely  erroneous  account  when  he  repre- 
sented intuition  as  giving  to  objects  the  forms  of  space  and  time ;  whereas  intui- 
tion simply  enables  us  to  discover  that  bodies  are  in  space,  and  events  in  time. 
There  is  certainly  a  high  intuitional  capacity  involved  in  eveiy  exercise  of  mind 
which  takes  in  extension  or  regards  objects  as  exercising  property.  And  then 
it  is  altogether  wrong  to  represent  sense  as  the  one  original  source  r  ^  experiential 
knowledge,  which  is  derived  from  consciousness  as  well  as  from  perception 
through  the  senses.  (2.)  It  is  wrong  to  represent  Intuitive  Reason  as  opposed 
to  the  Understanding.  There  is  intuitive  reason  involved  in  certain  exercises  of 
the  understanding,  as  when  we  infer  that  what  is  true  of  a  given  class  must  be 
true  of  each  of  the  members  of  the  class.  ISTor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
imderstanding  can  abstract  and  generalize  upon  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
objects  of  sense ;  it  can  do  so  upon  the  materials  supplied  by  consciousness, 
and  by  all  the  further  convictions  of  the  mind,  such  as  the  conscience.  (3.)  It 
is  wrong  to  represent  the  mind  as  gazing  immediately  and  intuitively  on  the 
true  or  the  good,  upon  the  necessary  or  the  universal.  It  can  indeed  rise  to  the 
conception  of  these,  but,  in  order  to  its  doing  so,  it  has  to  engage  in  abstraction 
and  generalization,  which  makes  the  truth  gained  no  longer  a  truth  of  pure 
reason,  but  of  reason  and  understanding  combined.  It  is  not  consistent  with 
the  natural  history  of  the  mind  to  represent  it  as  at  once  rising  to  the  contem- 
plation of  some  ideal  of  the  fair  and  good,  which  it  is  able  to  look  at  when  the 
spirit  is  not  agitated  by  passion  or  bedimmed  by  earthliness.  We  are  undoubt- 
edly led  by  native  taste  to  admii'e  the  beautiful,  but  it  is  v/hen  embodied  in  a 
lovely  object.  "We  are  constrained,  in  spite  of  a  rebellious  will,  to  approve  of 
the  good,  but  it  is  when  a  good  action,  or  rather,  a  good  being  performing  a 
good  action,  is  presented  to  the  mind.  The  general  ideas  of  the  true,  the  fail-, 
and  the  good,  do  not  spring  up  intuitively  in  the  mind,  but  are  fashioned  out 
of  intuitive  elements  by  those  addicted  to  reflection.  (4.)  It  is  preposterously 
wrong  to  suppose  that  the  mind  can  employ  intuitive  convictions  in  philosophic 
or  religious  speculations  ^n-ithout  any  associated  exercise  of  the  logical  under- 
standing. Not  being  immediately  conscious  of  the  Regulative  Principles  of 
the  mind,  we  cannot  employ  them  in  discussion  till  we  have  first  inquired  into 
their  nature  by  induction,  and  embodied  their  rule  in  a  clear  definition  or  a 
precise  axiom. 

II.  Distinction  between  "  a  Priori  "  and  "  a  Posteriori  "  Principles.— 
Prior  to  the  time  of  David  Hume,  the  phrase  a  priori  was  applied  to  the  proce- 
dure from  principle  to  consequent,  and  from  cause  to  effect,  using  the  word  cause 
in  a  wider  and  looser  sense  than  in  these  times ;  while  the  phrase  a  posteriori  was 
employed  to  characterize  the  procedure  from  consequent  to  antecedent,  or  from 
effect  to  cause.'  Since  the  publication  of  Hume's  philosophic  works,  and  more 
especially  since  the  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason  came  to  have  such  an  extensive  influ- 

1  Ciulworth'fi  language  is,  "  The  abstract  universal  rationos,  '  reasons,'  are  that  higher 
Btation  of  the  mind,  from  whence,  looking  down  upon  individual  tilings,  it  hath  a  com- 
manding view  of  them,  and,  as  it  were,  a  priori  comprehends  or  knows  them"  {Immai 
Mor.  III.  lii.  2). 


308  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

fucc,  a  2mori  denotes  AvLatc  ver  is  supposed  to  be  in  the  mind  prior  to  cxijc- 
rienco;  and  r/  poMcrlorl  v.-liatever  has  been  acquired  by  experience.  The  dis- 
tinction thus  indicated  and  designated  may  be  admitted  without  allowing  that 
it  probes  the  subject  to  its  depths,  and  certainly  without  admittuig  all  the  views 
usually  associated  with  it.  Even  in  regard  to  knowledge  acquii-ed  by  experience, 
I  maintain  that,  prior  to  its  acquisition,  the  mind  has  the  power  of  acquiring  it. 
The  bodily  frame  has  certainly  tlie  organs  of  sense  prior  to  seeing,  hearing,  tast- 
ing, touching,  or  smelling.  The  mind  has  certainly  the  capacity  of  perception 
licfurc  it  actually  observes  any  external  object,  and  the  power  of  camparison  be- 
fore it  can  notice  relations.  And,  in  acknowledging  the  distinction,  we  must 
ever  protest  against  the  idea  that  any  universal  or  necessary  tnith  can  be  dis- 
cerned by  the  mind  without  a  process  of  a  'posterloi-i  induction  and  arrangement. 
So  far  as  the  phrase  is  applied  to  general  maxims,  it  should  be  on  the  under- 
standing that  they  have  been  drawn  by  a  logical  process  out  of  the  individual 
a  priori  convictions. 

Closely  allied  to  the  question  of  a  priori  truth  is  the  question,  Can  there  be 
an  a  xjriori  scieuce  ?  This  is  a  topic  which  will  come  more  fully  before  us  in 
some  of  the  chapters  of  the  next  book.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  certain 
sciences  are  a  priori,  that  is,  the  principles  of  them  are  in  the  constitution  of 
the  mind,  and  are  ready  to  manifest  themselves  in  individual  acts.  In  another 
sense  there  can  be  no  a  2->riori  science,  for  science  employs  general  principles, 
and  there  are  no  such  principles  known  a  priori.  But  there  are  sciences,  the 
ground-principles  of  which  are  not  the  generalizations  of  a  gathered  experience, 
but  of  the  necessary  decisions  of  the  mind,  and  these  sciences  may  be  called 
a  priori  Avith  perfect  projiriety,  provided  always  that  it  be  understood,  that 
■while  the  general  law  is  in  the  mind  prior  to  its  manifestation,  it  is  discovered 
by  us  only  through  the  generalization  of  its  individual  exercises. 

ni.  Distinction  between  Form  and  Matter. — This  phraseology  was  intro- 
duced by  Aristotle,  who  represented  everything  as  having  in  itself  both  matter 
(vATj)  and  form  (eWof),  It  had  a  new  signification  given  to  it  by  Kant,  who  sup- 
poses that  the  mind  supplies  from  its  own  furniture  a  form  to  impose  on  the  mat- 
ter presented  from  without.  The  form  thus  corresponds  to  the  a  priori  element, 
and  the  matter  to  the  a  p)osteriori.  But  the  view  thus  given  of  the  relation  in 
which  the  knowing  mind  stands  to  the  known  object  is  altogether  a  mistaken 
one.  It  supposes  that  the  mind  in  cognition  adds  an  element  from  its  own 
resources,  whereas  it  is  simply  so  constituted  as  to  know  what  is  in  the  object. 
This  doctrine  needs  only  to  be  carried  out  consequentially  to  sap  the  foundations 
of  all  knowledge, — for  if  the  mind  may  contribute  from  its  own  stores  one  ele- 
ment, why  not  another  ?  why  not  all  the  elements  ?  In  fact,  Kant  did,  by  this 
distinction,  open  the  way  to  all  those  later  speculations  which  represent  the 
whole  universe  of  being  as  an  ideal  construction.  There  can,  I  think,  be  no 
impropriety  in  speaking  of  the  original  principles  of  the  mind  as  fomis  or  rules, 
but  they  are  forms  merely,  as  arc  the  rules  of  grammar,  which  do  not  add  any- 
thing to  correct  speaking  and  writing,  but  are  merely  the  expression  of  the 
laws  which  they  follow.  As  to  the  word  "  matter,"  it  has  either  no  meaning 
in  such  an  apj)lication,  or  a  meaning  of  a  misleading  character. 

rV.  Distinction  betwteen  Subjective  and  Objectite. — The  word  "  subject " 
has  a  diversity  of  meaning  in  the  English  language.    In  logic  it  denotes  the 


BOOK  I.J  GNOSIOLOGY.  309 

term  of  -n-hich  predication  is  made  ;  in  common  discourse,  it  means  the  topic 
about  wliich  affirmations  are  made  ;  and  in  metaphysics,  the  mind  contemplat- 
ing an  object.  The  term  "  object,"  too,  is  not  without  its  ambiguity.  Some- 
times it  stands  for  a  thing  contemplated  by  the  mind,  and  sometimes  for  a  thing 
considered  in  itself,  and  often  it  denotes  the  aim  or  end  which  the  mind  has  in 
any  of  its  pursuits.  I  am  afraid  it  will  be  impossible,  in  common  discourse,  to 
deprive  the  phrases  of  any  one  of  these  various  significations.  The  adjectives 
"  subjective  "  and  "  objective  "  have  not  had  such  a  variety  of  meaning,  and  the 
nouns  "  subject  "  and  "  object,"  when  used  together,  in  philosophic  discussion, 
should  be  limited  so  as  to  be  exactly  coincident  with  them.  They  should,  in 
my  opinion,  never  be  used  except  as  correlative  phrases  ;  the  terms  "  subject " 
and  "  subjective  "  being  employed  to  designate,  not  the  mind  in  itself,  but  the 
mind  as  contemplating  a  thing ;  and  the  terms  "  object  "  and  "  objective  "  to 
denote,  not  a  thing  in  itself,  but  a  thing  as  contemplated  by  the  mind.  It  is 
clear  that  if  the  i^hrases  where  employed  in  this  sense  when  used  at  the  same 
time,  we  should  be  saved  an  immense  amount  of  word- warfare,  in  which  subject 
and  object,  subjective  and  objective,  act  so  prominent  a  part.  We  should  be 
prevented  from  speaking,  as  is  so  often  done,  of  the  mind  as  subject  or  subject- 
ive, except  when  it  is  looking  at  something,  or  of  the  thing  as  an  object  or 
objective,  except  when  it  is  contemplated  by  a  thinking  mind.  We  would  also 
know  at  once  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said  that  the  siibject  implies  the  oljject, 
and  the  ol>ject  the  subject.  It  does  not  mean  that  the  existence  of  mind  implies 
an  external  thing  to  be  contemplated,  or  that  a  thing,  as  such,  implies  a  mind 
to  consider  it ;  it  signifies  simply  that  the  one  implies  the  other,  as  the  husband 
implies  the  wife,  and  the  wife  a  husband,  from  which  we  cannot  argue  that 
every  man  must  have  a  wife  and  every  woman  a  husband,  but  merely  that  when 
the  man  is  a, husband,  he  must  have  a  wife,  and  when  the  woman  is  a  wife,  she 
must  have  a  husband.  The  subjective  implies  the  objective  merely  in  the  sense 
that  when  the  mind  is  contemplating  a  thing,  it  must  be  contemplating  it,  and 
that  when  a  thing  is  contemplated,  it  must  be  contemplated  by  a  contempla- 
tive mind. 

With  a  large  school  of  metaphysicians  and  divines  the  words  "  subjective  " 
and  "objective"  are  used  in  a  Kantian  sense,  and  are  made,  without  the  persons 
employing  them  being  aware  of  it,  to  bring  in  the  whole  peculiarities  of  the 
critical  philosophy.  In  the  philosophy  which  has  germinated  from  Kant,  the 
suhject  mind  is  supposed  to  have  a  formative  power,  and  the  object  thing  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  thing,  or  phenomenon,  jylus  a  shape  or  a  colour  given  it  by  the 
mind.  Proceeding  on  this  view,  the  phrase  "  subjective  "  comes  to  express  that 
which  is  contributed  by  the  mind  in  cognition.  Thus  by  a  juggling  use  of 
these  phrases,  persons  are  being  involved,  without  their  having  the  least  sus- 
picion of  it,  in  a  philosophy  which  makes  it  impossible  for  us  ever  to  know 
things  except  under  aspects  twisted  and  distorted  no  man  can  tell  how  far  from 
the  reality.  We  can  be  saved  from  this  only  by  using  them  as  correlatives,  and 
insisting,  when  we  do  so,  that  the  subjective  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  know 
the  object  as  it  is,  under  the  aspects  presented. 

V.  LoGiCAi,  AND  CnnoNOLOGiCAL  Order  of  Ideas. — Sir  W.  Hamilton  quotes 
a  saying  of  Patrieius,  "  Cognitio  oninis  a  mentc  primam  originem,  a  sensibus  ex- 
ordium habct  primum."  The  distinction  is  deep  in  Kant,  and  has  been  fully 
and  skilf ally  elaborate  d  by  M.  Cousin.     It  is  said  that  there  are  ever  two  factors 


310  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

in  the  formation  of  our  a  in-'wri  ideas,  reason  and  experience  ;  and  tliat  logically 
reason  is  firet,  whereas  clironologically  expcricn(;e  comes  first.  The  distinction 
is  not  clearly  nor  happily  drawn  by  such  phi-aseology.  For  it  is  difficult  to  un- 
derstiind  what  is  meant  by  "  origin  "  as  distinguished  from  "  beginning  ;"  and 
what  is  meant  by  "  logical  "  in  such  an  application  ;  it  cannot  mean,  according 
to  the  rules  of  formal  logic,  it  must  mean,  according  to  reason  ;  and  then  comes 
in  the  important  fact  that  reason  and  experience  are  not,  properly  speaking, 
opposed.  The  distinction,  however,  points  to  a  truth,  inasmuch  as  our  intu- 
itions, as  mental  faculties,  laws,  or  tendencies,  are  in  the  mind  prior  to  the 
exercise  of  them.  There  is  a  difficulty,  however,  in  apprehending  what  is 
meant  by  the  logical  or  reason  element  being  first;  but  not  chronologically. 
The  intuition  as  a  law  is  in  the  mind  prior,  chronologically,  to  the  experience 
of  it.  The  individual  exhibition  of  the  conviction  and  the  experience  of  it 
come  chronologically  together.  It  is  true,  however,  in  the  fullest  sense,  that 
au  experience  is  necessary  in  order  to  our  being  able  to  present  the  necessai*y 
conviction  in  the  form  of  an  abstract  definition  or  general  maxim.  This  dis- 
tinction connects  itself  with  another,  which  I  am  now  to  examine. 

VI.  Distinction  between  Reason  as  the  Cause,  and  Sekse  and  Experi- 
ence AS  the  Occasion.' — It  is  allowed  that,  aj)art  from  sense  and  experience, 
the  mind  cannot  have  any  ideas ;  still,  it  is  noL  experience  which  produces  our 
necessary  ideas,  it  is  merely  the  occasion  of  them,  the  true  cause  being  the 
reason.  Thus,  without  an  exercise  of  sense,  there  could  be  no  idea  of  space  in 
the  mind ;  but  then  the  operation  is  merely  the  occasion  on  which  the  idea  of 
space  is  produced  by  an  inherent  mental  energy.  Aloof  from  a  special  event, 
there  could  be  no  idea  of  time ;  but  then  it  is  affirmed  that  upon  au  event  be- 
coming apprehended,  the  idea  of  time,  already  potentially  in  the  mind,  is  ready 
to  spring  up.  Without  the  observation  of  contiguous  concurrences,  there  could 
be  no  idea  of  cause ;  but  on  such  being  presented,  the  mind  is  found  to  be 
already  in  possession  of  an  idea  of  cause  by  which  to  bind  them  in  a  necessary 
connexion.  Till  some  human  action  is  presented,  there  could  be  no  idea  of 
moral  good ;  but  on  a  benevolent  action  being  apprehended,  the  idea  of  moral 
good  is  ready  to  spiing  up. 

There  is  important  truth  which  this  account  is  intended  to  express,  but  it 
does  net  bring  it  out  accurately.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  settle  precisely  the  differ- 
ence between  cause  and  occasion  :  the  occasion  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  elements 
of  the  unconditional  cause,  or  rather,  concause,  which  produces  the  effect.  In 
regard  to  the  original  faculty  or  law  of  the  mind,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  main 
element  of  the  complex  cause  which  issues  in  a  spontaneous  intuitive  convic- 
tion. But  there  is  need  of  a  concurrence  of  circumstances  in  order  to  this 
faculty  operating.  But  instead  of  confusedly  binding  all  these  up  in  the  one 
expression  "  occasion,"  it  is  better  to  spread  them  out  individually,  when  it  wiU 
be  found  that  each  acts  in  its  own  way.  Thus  we  should  show  that  an  action 
of  the  organism  is  needful  to  call  our  intuition  of  sense-iDcrception  into  exercise. 
We  should  show,  too,  that  an  apprehension  of  an  object  or  objects  is  needed, 
in  order  to  call  into  action  our  intuitions  as  to  the  infinity  of  time,  and  eternal 

'  Cudworth  refers  to  ideas  of  a  high  kind,  which  he  admits  are  "  most  cnmmonlj  excited 
and  awakened  occasionally  from  the  appulse  of  outward  objects  knocking  at  the  door  of 
the  senses,"  and  complains  of  men  not  distinguishing  "  betwixt  the  outward  occasion,  or 
invitation,  of  these  cogitations,  and  the  immediate  active  or  productive  cause  of  them" 
{Immut.  Mor.  iv.  ii.  2). 


BOOK  I.]  GNOSIOL  OGY.  311 

relations,  and  moral  good ;  and  then  it  may  be  seen  that  this  apprehensioQ  may 
not  have  been  got  from  sense,  and  that  in  our  primary  cognition  of  the  object 
there  may  have  been  intuition,— thus,  it  is  because  we  intuitively  know  every 
object  as  having  being,  that  we  declare  its  identity  of  being  at  different  times. 
Again,  in  respect  to  the  generalized  maxim,  or  notion,  the  account  is  fitted  to 
leave  a  very  erroneous  impression,  for  it  makes  it  appear  as  if  it  were  upon  the 
occasion  of  the  presentation  of  a  material  object,  that  there  springs  up  the 
abstract  idea  of  space  ;  and  of  an  event  becoming  known,  that  there  arises  the 
idea  of  time ;  or  of  a  succession  of  events  being  apprehended,  that  the  mind 
forms  an  idea  of  cause.  It  is  all  true  that  there  must  be  experience  in  order  to 
the  construction  of  the  abstract  or  general  notion,  but  the  notion  is  formed 
after  all,  by  the  ordinary  process  of  abstraction  and  generalization. 


312  METAPHYSICS.  [part  m. 


CE AFTER    III. 
ONTOLOGY. 

SECT.    I.  — ON    KNOWING    AND    BEING. 

These  are  topics  which  the  subtle  Greek  mind  delighted  to 
discuss  from  the  time  tliat  reflective  thought  was  first  awakened 
within  it, — tliat  is,  from  at  least  five  hundred  years  before  the 
Christian  era.  I  confess  I  should  like  to  have  been  present  when 
they  were  liandled  on  that  morning  when  Socrates,  as  yet  little 
more  tlian  a  hoj,  met  the  aged  Parmenides,  so  venerable  with  his 
noble  aspect  and  hoary  locks,  and  Zeno,  tall  and  graceful,  and  in 
the  vigour  of  his  manhood,  in  the  house  of  Pythodorus,  in  the 
Ceramicus,  beyond  the  walls  at  Athens.'  At  the  same  time,  I 
fear  that,  after  all,  I  could  have  got  little  more  than  a  glimpse  of 
the  meaning  of  the  interlocutors.  It  is  clear  that  even  Socrates 
himself  is  not  sure  whether  he  is  listening  to  solid  argument,  or 
losing  himself  among  verbal  disquisitions  and  dialectic  sophistries. 
And  who  will  venture  to  make  intelligible  to  a  modern  mind — 
even  to  a  Teutonic  mind — the  arguments  by  which  Parmenides 
and  Zeno  prove  that  Being  is  One,  and  the  impossibility  of  Non- 
Being  ;  or  translate  with  a  meaning,  into  any  other  tongue,  the, 
subtleties  of  those  Dialogues,  such  as  Parmenides  and  the  Sophist, 
in  which  Plato  makes  his  speakers  discourse  of  the  One  and  of  the 
Existing?  The  grand  error  of  all  these  disputations  arises  from 
those  who  conduct  them  imagining  that  truth  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
the  well,  whereas  it  is  at  the  surface  ;  and  in  going  past  the  pure 
waters  at  the  top,  they  liave  only  gone  down  into  mud  and  stirred 
up  mire.  We  are  hiotving,  and  knowing  being,  at  every  waking 
hour  of  our  existence,  and  all  that  the  philosopher  can  do  is  t( 

»  See  the  opening  of  the  Parmenides  of  Plato. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  313 

observe  them,  to  separate  each  from  the  other,  and  from  all  with 
which  it  is  associated,  and  to  give  it  a  right  expression.  But  the 
ancient  Greeks,  followed  bj  modern  metaphysicians,  imagined  that 
they  could  do  more,  and  so  have  done  infinitely  less.  They  have 
tried  to  get  a  more  solid  foundation  for  what  rests  on  itself,  and  so 
have  made  that  insecure  which  is  felt  to  be  stable.  They  have 
laboured  to  make  that  clearer  which  is  already  clear,  and  have 
thus  darkened  the  subject  by  assertions  which  have  no  meaning. 
They  have  explained  what  might  be  used  to  explain  other  truths, 
but  which  itself  neither  requires  nor  admits  of  explanation,  and  so 
have  only  landed  and  lost  themselves  in  distinctions  which  proceed 
on  no  differences  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  in  mysteries  of  their 
own  creation. 

Knowing,  in  the  concrete,  is  a  perpetual  mental  exercise,  ever 
under  tlie  eye  of  consciousness ;  and  we  can  by  an  intellectual  act 
separate  it  from  its  object,  and  contemplate  it  in  the  abstract.  In 
all  acts  of  knowledge  we  know  Being  in  the  concrete ;  that  is,  we 
know  things  as  existing,  and  we  can  separate  in  thought  the  thing 
from  our  knowledge  of  it,  and  the  thing  as  existing  from  all  else 
which  we  may  know  about  the  thing.  The  science  which  treats  of 
Being,  or  Existence,  is  Ontology.  In  a  loose  sense,  every  real 
science, — that  is,  every  science  which  treats  of  existing  objects, — 
might  be  called  an  ontological  science.  But  every  one  sees  that 
it  would  be  preposterous  to  represent  astronomy  and  geology  and 
agriculture  as  departments  of  ontology,  for  these  sciences  treat  not 
so  much  of  the  mere  being  of  objects  generally,  as  of  certain  quali- 
ties and  laws  of  special  classes  of  objects.  We  must  therefore 
confine  the  science  within  more  stringent  limits.  If  we  define 
Ontology  as  the  science  of  what  we  know  of  things  intuitively,  we 
are  giving  it  a  precise  field,  which  can  be  taken  in  from  the  waste, 
and  cultivated.  Gnosiology  and  Ontology  may  be  treated  to  a 
great  extent  together  in  a  Metaphysics  which  unfolds,  as  has  been 
attempted  in  this  treatise,  the  original  convictions  of  the  mind. 
Still  they  can  be  distinguished,  and  the  distinction  between  them 
should  be  steadily  kept  in  view.  The  one  seeks  to  find  what  are 
our  original  powers,  the  other  to  determine  what  we  know  of 
things  by  these  powers. 


3U  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

Tn  order  to  reach  tliis  second  end,  we  must  go  over,  one  by  one, 
the  various  classes  of  objects  known  by  our  intuitive  powers ;  but 
this  not,  as  in  Gnosiology,  to  determine  what  the  power  is,  but 
what  is  the  object  which  it  looks  at.  I  have  been  seeking-  to 
accomplish  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  of  these  all  throughout 
this  treatise.  By  simple  cognitive,  or  presentative  powers  (as 
Hamilton  calls  them),  wc  Irnow  objects  in  the  singular  and  in  the 
concrete  :  by  consciousness  we  know  self  as  having  being,  and  capa- 
ble of  thought  and  feeling  ;  by  perception  we  know  body  as  extended 
and  resisting  pressure ;  and  by  both  we  know  self  and  not-self  as 
having  an  existence  independent  of  the  mind  contemplating  them. 
By  the  reproductive  powers  we  are  led  to  believe  in  the  past 
event  recalled  by  memory  as  real,  that  is,  as  having  occurred  in 
time  past ;  and  round  space,  known  in  the  concrete  in  perception, 
and  time,  known  with  the  event  in  reminiscence,  there  gather  a 
number  of  beliefs  which  can  be  ascertained  and  expressed.  Among 
the  objects  thus  known  or  believed  in, — and  it  should  be  added, 
imagined  out  of  the  materials  supplied  by  the  cognitive  and  repro- 
ductive powers, — the  mind  can  discern  necessary  relations,  that  is, 
arising  from  the  very  nature  of  the  objects.  The  mind,  too,  is  led 
to  know  and  believe  in  a  moral  excellence  in  the  voluntary  acts 
of  intelligent  beings,  and  to  discover  the  bearings  and  relations 
of  moral  good  and  evil. 

Such  a  survey  as  this  enables  us  to  determine  what  are  the 
kinds  of  reality  which  the  mind  is  able  to  discover.  In  sense- 
perception  and  consciousness  it  is  a  real  thing,  known  as  having 
certain  qualities.  In  our  beliefs,  too,  we  look  to  a  real  thing  hav- 
ing attributes.  We  believe,  we  must  believe,  space  and  time  to 
have  an  existence,  not  as  mere  forms  of  thought,  but  altogether 
independent  of  the  contemplative  mind.  Our  judgments  may  or 
may  not  look  to  a  reality,  for  we  may  discover  relations  among 
imaginary  as  well  as  among  actual  objects.  But  when  the  objects 
are  real  the  relations  discovered  are  also  real, — not  indeed  inde- 
pendent realities,  but  real  relations  in  the  actual  objects.  The 
reality  discovered  by  the  moral  power  lies  in  a  quality  of  certain 
voluntary  acts  performed  by  persons  possessed  of  conscience  and 
free  will.    "We  thus  see  how  such  an  inspection  settles  for  us  not 


BOOK!.]  ONTOLOGY.  315 

only  that  there  is  a  reality,  but  what  is  the  sort  of  reality  ;  whether 
a  present  or  an  absent  reality,  whether  an  independent  reality  or 
a  reality  in  objects.  Thus  we  maintain  that  abstract  and  general 
notions  have  a  reality  when  the  objects  from  which  they  are  drawn 
are  real  ;  but  we  are  not  to  understand,  as  Plato's  language  would 
lead  us  to  believe,  that  they  have  a  reality  independent  in  some 
intelligible  world.  The  relations  of  quantity  treated  of  in  mathe- 
matics have  a  reality,  but  it  is  only  in  space  and  time,  and  in 
bodies  as  occupying  space  and  existing  in  time.  Cause  and  effect 
have  a  reality  independent  of  the  mind  which  observes  them  ;  but 
this  is,  after  all,  in  the  substances  which  act  and  are  acted  on. 
Moral  good  aud  sin  are  certainly  both  real,  but  their  actuality  is 
in  the  dispositions  of  responsible  beings. 

I  Hatter  myself  that  by  the  account  given  in  this  treatise,  I  have 
avoided  the  error  of  those  who  would  dissociate  the  native  laws  of 
the  mind  from  things.  Some  give  a  priori  principles  a  formative 
power  in  the  mind,  and  make  them  add  to  the  objects,  or  even 
create  the  objects.  Now,  they  are  no  doubt  in  the  mind,  but  they 
are  there  as  powers  to  enable  us  to  apprehend  objects.  They  arc 
in  our  very  constitution  as  laws,  but  they  are  laws  in  relation  to 
things.  They  exist  as  tendencies  prior  to  operation,  but  when 
they  come  into  action  it  is  as  cognitions,  beliefs,  and  judgments  in 
regard  to  objects. 

But  what  can  metaphysical  science  do  in  tlie  way  of  establish- 
ing the  reality  of  objects  ?  Truly  it  can  do  very  little  j  and  by 
going  beyond  its  own  narrow  territory,  by  trying,  for  instance,  to 
prove  first  truths,  or  get  a  ground  for  original  principles,  it  has 
often  exposed  itself  to  most  damaging  assaults.  Still  it  can  do 
something  if  it  keep  within  its  own  impregnable  fortress.  It  can 
show  what  our  original  principles  are,  liow  they  work,  and  what  they 
say  ;  and  all  tliis  surely  is  matter  of  great  speculative  importance, 
independent  of  the  question  as  to  whether  we  can  confide  in  their 
depositions.  In  particular,  it  can  unfold  the  process  by  which  the 
mind  attains  its  convictions,  and  show  how  they  stand  related  to 
things.  Thus,  in  consciousness,  we  have  the  object,  that  is  self, 
immediately  under  inspection,  so  that  we  might  as  well  deny  the 
existence  of  the  cognitive  conviction  as  of  the  thing  apprehended. 


310  3IETAFIIYSICS.  [part  hi. 

Again,  in  scnsc-pcrcoption  wc  have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  an 
extended  object,  and  this  ever  coexisting  with  tlic  immediate 
knowledge  of  self,  so  that  we  may  as  well  deny  self  as  the  external 
object  ])erceivcd  by  the  conscious  self.  Then  our  intuitive  beliefs 
are  not  indojjcndent  of  our  knowledge  of  objects  ;  they  all  proceed 
on  a  cognition,  or  as  derived  from  it,  an  apprehension  of  objects. 
It  is  in  contemplating  the  objects  known  or  conceived,  tliat  wo 
believe  them  to  have  qualities  which  do  not  fall  under  our  im- 
mediate inspection  ;  and,  if  wc  deny  our  intuitive  beliefs,  it  must 
be  on  principles  whicli  would  undermine  our  intuitive  knowledge. 
Again,  our  intuitive  judgments  all  proceed  on  our  cognitions  and 
beliefs  ;  on  comparing  objects  known  or  believed  in,  we  perceive 
them  to  have  certain  necessary  relations  involved  in  their  very 
nature.'  Our  original  convictions  thus  constitute  an  organic  whole, 
springing  from  immediate  knowledge  as  the  root,  and  rising  into 
comparisons  and  faiths,  as  the  branches  and  leaves. 

As  wc  thus  go  round  about  the  tower  of  human  knowledge,  wo 
find  it  a  compact  structure,  consolidated  from  base  to  summit.  He 
who  would  a,ttack  any  part  must  attack  the  whole,  and  he  who 
would  attack  the  whole,  will  find  every  part  strengthening  it.  The 
foundation  is  sure,  being  well  laid  ;  the  building  is  also  sure,  as 
being  firmly  built  upon  it  ;  and  he  who  would  assail  the  super- 
structure will  find  the  basis  bearing  it  up  throughout. 

The  objections  which  may  be  advanced  against  the  reality  of 
things,  will  be  answered  in  the  sections  which  follow. 


SECT.   II.— ON  IDEALISM. 

Two  questions  here  press  themselves  on  us,  and  seem  to  raise  up 
clouds  in  which  dimly-sccn  objects  look  like  spectres. 

I.  Does  the  subject  never  add  to  the  object  something  not  in 
the  object?  Does  tlie  eye,  in  looking  at  a  scene,  never  impart  a 
colour  to  it,  a  glow  or  a  gloom?    The  mirth  is  not  in  the  merry 

1  It  will  be  seen  from  this  account  we  do  not  found  knowledge  as  the  Scotch  meta- 
Iihvsicifins  seem  to  do,  on  belief  in  our  nature  and  constitution.  It  would  be  as  near  the 
truth  to  say  we  beliere  our  constitution  because  it  makes  known  realities.  But  the  truth 
is,  the  two  seem  involved  the  one  in  the  other.  In  our  cognitions  and  beliefs  we  know  and 
believe  in  objects,  and  in  doing  so,  trust  in  our  constitutions. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  317 

peal,  nor  the  melauclioly  iu  the  funereal  toll  of  the  bell,  nor  is  the 
music  in  tlie  flute  or  organ,  but  in  the  soul  which  rings  and 
breathes  and  beats  in  liarmony  with  the  external  movements.  The 
view  differs  according  to  the  point  from  which  men  take  it, 
according  to  men's  natural  or  acquired  temperaments,  tastes,  and 
characters,  and  according  to  the  circumstances  in  which  tliey  are 
placed.  How  different  the  estimate  which  is  formed  of  a  neigh- 
bour's character,  according  as  he  who  judges  is  swayed  by  kindness 
or  malignity,  by  charity  or  suspicion !  The  scene  varies  according 
to  the  humoiu'  in  which  we  happen  to  be,  quite  as  much  as  it 
changes  according  to  the  light  or  atmosphere  in  which  we  survey 
it.  Hope  gladdens  everything  as  if  it  were  seen  under  an  Italian 
sky,  whereas  disappointment  wraps  it  in  mist  and  cloud.  Joy 
steeps  the  whole  landscape  in  its  own  gay  colours,  whereas  sorrow 
wraps  it  as  iu  the  sable  dress  of  mourning.  Do  not  such  facts, 
known  to  all  observers  of  human  nature,  and  dwelt  on  by  poets  as 
being  largely  their  stock-in-trade,  prove  that  in  all  our  ideas, 
views,  notions,  opinions,  there  is  a  subjective  element  no  less 
prominent  and  potent  than  the  objective  ?  And  if  there  be,  what 
limits  arc  we  to  set  it?  Is  our  metaphysical  philosophy  agreed 
with  itself  on  this  suljject?  Or,  with  all  its  refinements,  can  it 
'draw  a  decided  line  which  will  for  ever  separate  the  one  from 
the  other  ? 

1.  All  knowledge  through  the  senses  is  accompanied  with  an 
organic  feeling,  that  is,  a  sensation.  Our  immediate  acquaintance 
with  the  external  world  is  always  through  the  organism,  and  is 
therefore  associated  and  combined  with  organic  affections  pleasing 
or  displeasing.  Certain  sounds  are  felt  to  be  harsh  or  grating, 
others  are  relished  as  being  sweet  or  melodious  or  harmonious. 
Some  colours,  in  themselves,  or  in  their  associations,  are  felt  to  be 
glaring  or  discordant,  while  others  are  enjoyed  as  being  agreeable 
or  exciting.  In  short,  every  sense-perception  is  accompanied  with 
a  sensation,  the  perception  being  the  knowledge,  and  the  sensation 
the  bodily  affection  felt  by  the  conscious  mind  as  present  in  the 
organism.  He  who  is  no  philosopher,  finds  little  difficulty  in 
distinguishing  the  two  in  practice  ;  and  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult 
for  the  man  who  is  a  philosopher  to  distinguish  tlie  two  in  theory. 


31S  METAPHYSICS.  [part  iii. 

Every  man  can  distinguish  the  sugar  in  itself  from  tlic  sweet  flavour 
wliich  we  have  in  our  mouth  wlien  we  taste  it,  or  tlio  tooth  and  gum 
from  tlic  toothache  which  is  wrenching  them  ;  and  tlie  metaphysician 
is  only  giving  a  philosophic  expression  to  a  natural  difference  when 
he  distinguishes  between  sensation  and  perception. 

2.  Certain  mental  representations  arc  accompanied  with  emotion. 
Tims  tlie  apprehension  of  evil  as  about  to  come  on  us  or  those 
whom  we  love,  raises  np  fear ;  the  contemplation  of  good,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  likely  to  accrue  to  us  or  those  in  whom  we  feel  an 
interest,  excites  hope.  This  is. only  one  example  of  the  kind  of 
emotions  wliich  attach  themselves  to  all  mental  pictures  of  objects, 
as  having  brouglit,  or  as  now  bringing,  or  as  likely  to  bring,  pleasure 
or  pain,  or  any  otlier  sort  of  good  or  evil,  and  which  steep  the  objects 
in  their  own  waters,  and  impart  to  them  tlicir  peculiar  hue.  Hence 
the  gloom  cast  over  scenes  fair  enough  in  themselves — as  by  a  dark 
sliadow  the  effect  of  the  interposition  of  a  gloomy  self  obstructing 
the  light ;  hence  the  splendour  poured  over  perhaps  the  very  same 
scenes  at  other  times — as  by  light  streaming  through  our  feelings, 
as  through  stained  glass  or  irradiated  clouds.  Hence  the  pleasure 
we  feel  in  certain  contemplations,  and  the  pain  called  forth  by  others. 
Hence  the  fear  that  depresses,  tliat  arrests  all  energy,  and  at  last 
sinks  its  victim ;  lience  the  hope  which  buoys  up,  which  cheers  and 
leads  to  deeds  of  daring  and  of  heroism.  But  while  the  two  are 
blended  in  one  mental  affection  in  the  mind,  it  is  not  difficult,  after 
all,  to  distinguish  between  the  object  known,  and  the  accompanying- 
emotion  ;  between  the  trumpet  sounding,  and  the  martial  spirit 
excited  by  it ;  between  the  canvas  and  oil  of  Titian,  and  the  feeling 
which  his  ascending  Mary  raises  within  us,  glowing  and  attractive 
as  the  splendours  of  the  dying  day  ;  between  our  friend  as  he  is 
in  himself,  and  the  deep  and  tender  regard  which  we  must  entertain 
towards  him. 

3.  Certain  ideas  are  associated  with  other  ideas  which  raise 
emotions.  It  does  not  concern  us  at  present  to  explain  the  nature 
of  the  laws  which  govern  the  succession  of  our  ideas.  It  is  certain 
that  ideas  which  have  at  any  time  been  together  in  our  mind, 
either  simultaneously  or  successively,  in  a  concrete  or  complex 
state,  will  tend  to  produce  the  one  or  the  other  ;  and  an  idea  which 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOCTY.  319 

has  no  emotion  attached,  may  come  notwithstanding  to  raise  up 
feeling  through  the  idea  with  which  it  is  associated,  and  which 
never  can  come  witliout  sentiment.  Thermopylae,  Bannockburn, 
and  Waterloo,  look  uninteresting  enough  places  to  the  eye,  and  to 
those  who  may  be  ignorant  of  the  scenes  transacted  there ;  but  the 
spots  and  the  very  names  stir  up  feeling  like  a  war-trumpet  in  the 
breasts  of  all  who  know  that  freedom  was  there  delivered  from 
menacing  tyranny.  Thus  it  is  that  the  buds  and  blossoms  of 
spring,  and  the  prattle  of  boys  and  girls,  call  forth  a  hope  as  fresh 
and  lively  as  they  themselves  are.  Thus  it  is  that  the  leaves  of 
autumn,  gorgeous  tliough  they  be  in  colouring,  and  the  graveyard 
where  our  forefathers  sleep,  clothed  though  it  be  all  over  with 
green  grass,  incline  to  musing  and  to  sadness.  But  neither  is  it 
very  difficult  to  distinguish  between  an  apprehension  or  represen- 
tation and  its  associated  ^/eeling,  to  separate  between  the  primrose 
and  the  spring  cmoticii  which  bursts  forth  on  the  contemplation 
of  it,  between  tlic  grave  of  a  sister  and  the  sorrowful  tenderness 
which  it  evokes. 

4.  The  mind  of  tlie  mature  man  cannot  look  on  any  one  object 
without  viewing  it  in  a  number  of  relations.  A  house  presented 
to  an  infant  may  bo  nothing  but  a  coloured  surface  with  »  certain 
outline  ;  to  the  mature  man  it  is  known  as  a  house,  possibly  with 
a  loved  dweller  within.  An  apple  falling  to  the  ground  is  known 
intuitively  simply  as  an  object  in  motion  ;  but  by  the  educated 
man  it  is  known  as  a  vegetable  fruit  falling  to  the  ground  in 
obedience  to  what  seems  a  universal  law  of  matter.  Does  not  the 
mind,  in  such  cases,  add  to  the  object  relations  imposed  by  itself? 
To  this  I  answer,  that  all  that  the  mind  does,  is  to  add  to  its 
original  a  further  knowledge,  a  knowledge  of  relations  discovered 
in  the  objects  themselves.  The  object  before  us  is  not  merely  a 
coloured  shape,  it  is  a  house,  and  as  a  house  we  are  entitled  to 
regard  it.  The  apple  falling  to  tlie  ground  is  in  fact  a  fruit  obeying 
a  power  of  gravitation.  The  letters  of  a  book  are  to  the  infant 
mere  black  strokes ;  to  the  cliild  learning  to  read  tliey  arc  figures, 
signs  of  sound  ;  to  the  grown  man  or  woman  they  are  signs  of 
thoughts  or  feelings,  addressed  by  a  writer  to  a  reader :  but  the 
truth  is,  the  letters  are  real  things  under  all  these  aspects ;  real 


320  METAFHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

stroko;5,  real  signs  of  sounds  and  sense.  So  far  as  wc  proceed 
accurately,  according  to  the  laws  of  thought  using  experience,  ano 
aro  employed  in  discovering  the  actual  relations  of  things,  Vfie 
conceptions  reached  imply  a  reality  quite  as  much  as  the  intuitions 
with  which  the  mind  starts. 

I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  these  are  all,  but  they  are  r'.je 
more  important  of  the  natural  influences  which  operate  to  cciour 
or  enlarge  our  knowledge.  The  Author  of  our  nature  *  cei  tain'',y 
means  us  to  add  to  our  knowledge  by  continued  observation,  and 
to  graft  the  acquired  on  tlic  original  stock ;  and  he  has  bw^c/- 
induced  attached  sensations,  and  made  the  very  laws  of  our  uaUre 
to  call  in  associated  thoughts  and  feelings  in  order  to  intc-nsify 
and  elevate  our  enjoyment,  or  in  sOme  cases  to  be  a  prognostic  of 
evil,  Avhich  should  ever  be  associated  with  offence  and  disgust.  So 
far  as  music  gives  us  more  pleasure  than  wire  vibrations ;  so  fur 
as  a  Swiss  valley,  guarded  by  Mont  Blanc,  or  Mont  Cervin,  or  the 
Jdngfrau,  is  finer  than  an  accumulation  of  grass,  trees,  stones,  and 
snow  ;  so  far  as  the  spot  where  a  great  and  a  good  man  was  born  is 
more  stimulating  than  would  be  the  uninteresting  hut,  which  is  all 
the  bodily  sense  perceives, — we  owe  it  to  the  beneficence  of  God, 
who  has  made  us  sensitive  as  well  as  cognitive  beings.  So  far  as  we 
are  led  to  shrink  from  baser  scenes,  it  is  by  a  provision  which  is 
intended  to  keep  us  back  from  what  might  issue  in  pain  or  in  sin. 
It  .'should  be  added  that  v/nile  this  is  no  doubt  the  original  intent 
0^  these  peculiarities  of  our  constitution,  they  may,  in  the  volun- 
tary and  sinful  abuse  of  them,  become  a  seduction  to  evil,  and  a 
scourge  to  inflict  the  keenest  misery.  They  may  lead  man,  through  a 
misgoverned  imagination,  to  paint  in  glowing  colours  a  fictitious 
object,  and  then  pursue  it,  when  ho 

"  Sees  full  before  liirn,  gliding  witliout  tread, 
An  image  with  a  glory  round  its  head  ; 
Tliis  shade  he  worships  for  its  golden  hues, 
And  makes  (not  knowing)  that  which  he  pursues." 

Thus  it  is  that  the  mind  irradiates  with  a  romantic  tinge  objects 
unworthy  in  themselves,  and  then  goes  on  to  love  tliem  and  de- 
I'glit  in  them.  Man  may  thus  come,  too,  to  be  haunted  by  spectres 
of  his  own  creation,  to  be  mocked  by  his  own  shadow  seen  across 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  321 

some  of  the  deeper  gorges  of  the  earth,  and  striding  opposite  as  he 
himself  moves.  Thus  it  is  that  there  are  to  us,  for  our  gratifica- 
tion, glowing  colours,  burnishing  what  are  in  themselves  only 
mists  and  damps,  and  spanning  the  heavens  above  us  with  a  bow 
of  liope,  assuring  us  t'nat  these  waters  wliich  threaten  will  not 
overwhelm  us ;  tlnis  it  is,  too,  that  there  are  hideous  mock  suns 
personating  the  very  briglitest  light  which  God  has  planted  in 
these  heavens.  Still  the  man  of  good  sense  and  of  simple  honesty 
will  find  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  practically,  between  things 
which  I  have  been  seeking  in  this  section  to  separate  theoretically. 

II.  But  is  not  an  imperfect  knowledge  an  erroneous,  a  delusive 
knowledge  ?  A  rock  seen  in  outline  between  us  and  the  sky, 
seems  like  a  man's  face  ;  as  we  approach  it,  the  features  —  chin, 
nose,  and  brow — vanish,  and  we  discover  it  to  be  an  unshapely 
mass.  To  the  common  apprehension  the  sky  looks  concave,  with 
a  sprinkling  of  stars  sparkling  at  night  like  diamonds  on  its  sur- 
face, and  it  is  only  further  consideration  wliich  brings  us  to  regard 
it  as  a  vast  expanse,  in  which  great  luminaries  are  moving.  The 
boy  feels  as  if  he  might  mount  to  the  moon,  and  bring  it  down  ; 
and  as  if  he  could  hold  the  sun  in  his  hands  like  an  orange,  pro- 
vided it  did  not  burn  him.  In  such  instances  our  further  expe- 
rience on  earth  sets  aside  our  first  beliefs  ;  and  is  it  not  possible 
that  many  of  the  favourite  opinions  entertained  by  all  men  on 
earth  may  be  set  aside  by  the  wider  and  ever  widening  experience 
of  heaven  ?  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  the  very  strongest  and  most 
universal  convictions  of  humankind  may  seem  altogether  erroneous 
to  beings  in  a  different  constitution  of  things,  and  with  other  prin- 
ciples of  knowledge  and  belief  ? 

1.    I   answer   that   many   of  tlio   inferences   we   draw   from   our 

original  and  acquired  knowledge,  and  the  applications  we  make  of 

it,  are  erroneous.      It  is  ascertained,  for  instance,  that  absolute  size 

and  distance  are  not  original  endowments  of  the  sense  of  sight  ; 

all  that  we  intuitively  perceive  by  the  eye  is  a  coloured  surface. 

It  follows  that  when  we  are  judging  of  the  magnitude  or  locality 

of  objects,  we  are  drawing  inferences  from  our  original  perceptions. 

We  found  our  conclusions   on   rules  which  arc  correct   enough  for 

ordinary  instances,  or  instances  similar  to  those  from  which  they 
21 


322  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

■were  tlcrivcd,  but  wliicli  may  be  altogetlicr  wrong  or  deceptive 
■\vlicn  applied  to  otlicr  or  peculiar  cases.  We  are  not  warranted 
to  allege  that  our  intuitive  perceptions  tlirougli  tlie  senses  deceive 
us  :  we  have  been  led  astray  by  rules  laid  down  by  ourselves  ; 
and  furtlier  knowledge  enables  us  to  correct  them,  or  rather  to 
show  under  what  restrictions  they  hold  good.  But  the  increase  of 
knowledge  does  not  set  aside  the  primary  knowledge  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  might  be  shown  that  it  proceeds  on  the  original  stock. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  all  the  errors  into  which  we  fall  are 
of  a  similar  character.  We  draw  rash  inferences  from  our  real 
knowledge,  original  or  acquired,  and  tlien  charge  our  errors  on  our 
constitutions.  Still  more  frequently  we  illegitimately  extend  rules, 
correct  enough  in  themselves,  to  cases  to  which  they  do  not  apply. 
In  some  of  these  instances  the  generalizations  we  form,  or  the  con- 
clusions we  draw,  may  serve  some  good  end,  even  though  they 
cannot  be  regarded  as  positively  true.  Thus  we  suppose  the  sky 
to  be  a  concave  sphere  ;  thus,  too,  scientific  men  of  the  most 
rigidly  positive  class  are  obliged,  when  referring  to  the  last  re- 
sources of  decomposition,  to  call  in  indivisible  particles,  molecules, 
monads,  or  atoms.  But  these  are  mere  suppositions  to  aid  our 
conceptive  power,  and  enable  us  to  think  or  talk  intelligibly  of 
objects  of  which  we  have  no  intuitive,  and,  in  the  latter  case,  no 
certain  knowledge  whatsoever.  These  convictions  cannot  be  de- 
scribed as  primary  or  fundamental,  and  we  can  easily  deliver  our- 
selves from  both  the  one  and  the  other.  In  such  cases,  increase 
of  knowledge  constrains  us  to  modify  or  correct  some  of  the  con- 
clusions illegitimately  drawn  from  data  which  are  sound. 

2.  I  answer,  that  further  knowledge  is  ever  adding  to  our  ori- 
ginal or  acquired  stock,  but  does  not  set  it  aside.  Were  we  to  look 
upon  our  knowledge  as  being  absolute  and  perfect,  we  should,  in 
the  very  act  1)0  falling  into  error  ;  we  should  l;)e  drawing  a  con- 
clusion unwarranted  by  facts.  I  am  convinced  that  much  of  the 
illusion  into  which  we  fall  arises  from  this  cause.  We  suppose 
that  we  know  all  about  an  object,  whereas  we  may  know  it,  after 
all,  only  under  one  aspect,  or  in  the  exercise  of  but  a  very  few  of 
its  many  and  varied  properties ;  but,  imagining  we  know  its  whole 
nature,  we  set  about  constructing  theories  regarding  it,  and  point- 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  323 

ing  out  its  relation  to  all  other  objects.  I  acknowledge  that  such 
speculations  may  be  set  aside  by  further  knowledge,  even  as  they 
would  be  seen  all  along  to  be  erroneous  by  persons  of  higher  intel- 
ligence. ,  Those  who  imagine  that  they  have  cleared  up  all  the 
mysteries  of  the  Divine  nature  and  decrees,  of  the  soul  of  man,  and 
the  nature  of  spirit  or  of  body,  may  be  astonished  and  humbled  to 
find,  when  they  reach  tlic  land  of  brighter  light,  how  crude  their 
theories  have  been.  But  their  mistakes  have  arisen,  not  from 
their  constitutions  or  their  experience  deceiving  them,  but  from 
the  unwarrantable  additions  made  by  their  own  ingenuity.  So 
far  as  our  knowledge  proceeds  from  intuition,  and  is  guaranteed 
by  our  nature  and  constitution,  it  will  be  found  that  further  knowl- 
edge, natural  or  supernatural,  imparted  in  this  life  or  the  life  to 
come,  serves  only  to  enlarge  our  original  stock,  and  make  it  more 
solid  and  congruous.  The  new  aspects  now  presented  will  not  be 
inconsistent  with  the  old,  but  will  rather  enable  us  to  make  a  more 
extended  use  of  them.  Here  we  see  as  in  a  glass  darkly ;  still, 
what  we  see  is  a  correct  representation,  so  far  as  it  goes  ;  and  what 
we  are  to  discover  in  a  clearer  light,  may  often  be  the  full  linea- 
ments and  features  of  what  we  saw  here  so  very  obscurely.  All 
existing  objects  may  be  represented  as  polygons, — some  perhaps 
with  a  hundred  sides,  some  with  a  thousand,  and  the  Supreme 
Being  witli  an  infinite  number ;  and  of  these  man  may  see  only  a 
few,  perhaps  half-a-dozen  or  a  dozen  ;  still,  what  he  sees  is  real. 
The  knowledge  may  not  be  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  construct 
the  mathematics  of  the  figure,  or  to  discover  all  the  relations  of 
side  to  side  and  side  to  centre ;  still,  what  he  sees  are  real  sides 
of  the  very  thing  ;  and  if  we  could  see  other  sides,  or  all  the  sides,  it 
would  not  even  modify  this  first  knowledge,  it  would  simply  widen 
and  enlarge  it. 

Conceive  a  savage,  just  taught  to  read  simple  words  of  one  or 
two  syllables,  poring  over  the  pages  of  a  full  Bible,  which  a  mis- 
sionary has  presented  to  him.  A  few  chapters  in  Genesis  or  John 
is  all  he  lias  read  or  can  yet  read.  What  he  has  thus  learned  is 
truth,  and  if  he  keep  to  what  he  has  read  and  understood,  he  has 
committed  no  error.  But  mingled  with  this  there  may  be  supposi- 
tions, guesses,  conclusions,  expectations,  as  to  the  general  contents 


324  3IETJPHYSICS.  [part  hi, 

of  tlie  book,  and  associated  with  tlie  whole,  superinduced  feelings 
of  Avonder  or  awe ;  and  these,  were  he  to  open  tliem  up,  would  in 
all  probability  appear  sufficiently  ludicrous  to  one  wlio  lias  perused 
the  wliole  volume.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  wisest  man  in  this 
world  stands  in  relation  to  the  whole  body  of  truth  in  very  much 
the  same  relation  as  tlie  savage  does  to  tlie  truth  in  the  Bible.  Let 
the  wise  man,  if  lie  would  deserve  the  name,  keep  to  what  he 
does  know,  and  he  is  on  safe  ground  ;  but  if  lie  begin  to  speculate 
beyond,  his  wisdom  will  in  all  probability  appear  folly  to  higher 
intelligences,  and  his  most  confident  assertions  may  turn  out  to  bo 
contradictions.  Still,  when  he  keeps  within  the  precincts  of  knowl- 
edge given  in  intuiticKi  or  acquired  by  experience,  what  is  revealed 
to  him  is  as  certain  as  it  is  valuable,  valuable  in  itself,  and  valu- 
able as  the  foundation  on  which  further  acquisitions  may  be  built, 
without  limits  and  Avithout  end.  I  do  believe  that  in  the  region, 
wherever  it  be,  to  which  man  is  carried  after  death,  new  objects 
will  be  disclosed  to  him  Avhich  he  could  not  so  much  as  conceive 
on  earth  ;  and  the  very  objects  whicli  he  knew  before,  divine  or 
created,  will  be  seen  clothed  with  new  qualities,  as  different  from 
any  which  came  under  his  notice  on  earth,  as  colours  are  to  the 
man  born  blind  but  whose  eyes  are  opened,  or  as  musical  sounds 
are  to  the  man  whose  ears  have  been  unstopped ;  and  that  the 
ncAv  kinds  of  knowledge  will  open  new  sources  of  enjoyment, 
ever-duriug  and  ever-increasing, — but  all  this  without  any  of  our 
genuine  earthly  knowledge  or  experience  being  nullified  or  can- 
celled. 

We  are  now  in  circumstances  to  judge  of  idealism.  But  let  us 
first  speak  of  the  ideal  spirit.  It  is  truly  an  elevated  and  an 
elevating  one,  if  at  all  restrained  within  proper  limits.  There  arc 
elements  in  human  nature  fitted, — I  believe  intended,  to  produce 
and  foster  it.  It  is  meant  tliat  sensations  should  warm  our  knoAvl- 
edge  into  a  glow,  that  feelings  should  buoy  up  our  intellectual 
notions  into  a  higher  region  tlian  they  themselves  can  reach,  and 
that  our  colder  apprehensions  should  be  linked  to  others  which 
are  more  fervent.  The  glory  tlius  cast  around  objects,  common- 
place  enough  it  may  be  in  themselves,  renders  them  more  lovable 
and  beloved.     The  melody  which  the  ear  gives  to  the  sound,  in- 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY  325 

creases  our  interest  in  the  thouglit  or  sentiment  uttered,  and  turns, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  prose  into  poetry.  The  ideal  spirit  may  be  an 
incentive  to  glorious  enterprise  ;  it  steeps  the  country  before  us — 
mountain,  vale,  sea,  and  island — in  sunlight,  and  thus  allures  us 
to  explore  it.  It  is  especially  elevating  when  it  takes  a  moral 
direction,  when  it  places  before  us  a  high  model  to  which  we  ever 
look,  and  to  which  we  would  become  assimilated,  and  sets  us  forth 
amidst  sacrifices  made,  to  accomplish  some  high  end,  reaching 
forth  far  in  time  or  into  eternity.  Still,  it  is  of  the  utmost  moment 
that  the  person  steadily  draw  the  distinction  between  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  object  and  tlie  light  in  which  we  view  it.  Without 
this,  the  unrestrained  spirit  will  be  apt  to  break  forth  into  extrava- 
gance, which  will  end  in  a  collapse  and  a  reaction  ;  foolish  hopes 
will  be  excited  which  can  never  be  gratified,  and  when  this  comes 
to  be  realized,  the  issue  must  be  the  blackest  disappointment,  not 
unfrequeutly  ennui,  apathy,  and  chagrin, — at  times  sourness,  bitter- 
ness, or  despair. 

While  we  can  with  truth  say  so  much  of  the  ideal  spirit,  I  can 
bestow  no  such  commendation  on  idealism  as  a  philosophic  system, 
that  is,  the  system  which  would  raise  our  associated  sentiments  to 
the  rank  of  cognitions.  I  allow  that  it  is  vastly  superior  to  sen- 
sationalism, which  acknowledges  only  the  visible  and  the  tangible  ; 
but,  in  making  this  allowance,  it  is  proper  to  add  that,  on  tlie 
principle  that  extremes  meet,  it  sometimes  happens  that  there  are 
persons  at  one  and  the  same  time  sensationalists  and  idealists, 
believing  only  in  the  physical,  and  yet  not  believing  the  physical 
to  be  real.^  But,  speaking  of  idealism  in  itself,  it  is  an  unphilo- 
sophic  system,  and,  in  the  end,  has  a  dangerous  tendency.  Its 
radical  vice  lies  in  maintaining  that  certain  things,  wliich  wc  in- 
tuitively know  or  believe  to  be  real,  are  not  real.  I  say,  certain 
things  ;  for  were  it  to  deny  tliat  all  things  are  real,  it  would  be 
scepticism.  Idealism  draws  back  from  such  an  issue  with  shud- 
dering. But,  affirming  the  reality  of  certain  objects,  with  palpable 
inconsistency  it  will  not  admit  the  existence  of  other  objects 
equally  guaranteed  by  our  constitution.  This  inconsistency  will 
pursue   the   system   remorselessly   as  an  avenger.      Idealism    com 

■  See  a  review  of  ilr.  Mill,  infra,  sect.  vii.  p.  341 


326  METAPHYSICS.  [paet  hi. 

monly  begins  by  declaring  that  external  objects  have  no  such 
reality  as  we  suppose  them  to  liave,  and  tlicn  it  is  driven  or  led  in 
tlie  next  age,  or  in  tlic  pages  of  tlic  next  speculator,  to  avow  that 
they  have  no  reality  at  all.  At  this  stage  it  will  still  make  lofty 
})retcntions  to  a  realism  founded,  not  on  the  external  phenomenon, 
but  on  the  internal  idea.  But  the  logical  necessity  speedily  chases 
liie  system  irom  tins  refuge,  and  constrains  tiie  succeeding  specu- 
lator to  admit  that  self  is  not  as  it  seems,  or  that  it  exists  only  as 
it  is  felt,  or  wlien  it  is  felt ;  and  the  terrible  consequence  cannot 
be  avoided,  that  we  cannot  know  whether  there  be  objects  before 
us  or  no,  or  whether  tliere  be  an  eye  or  a  mind  to  perceive  them. 
There  is  no  way  of  avoiding  this  black  and  blank  scepticism  but 
by  standing  up  for  the  trustworthiness  of  all  our  original  intui- 
tions, and  formally  maintaining  tliat  tliere  is  a  reality  wherever 
our  intuitions  declare  that  there  is. 

The  idealist  has  indeed  a  truth,  which  he  weaves  into  the  body 
of  his  system,  but  that  truth  is  misapprehended  and  perverted. 
There  are  impressions  and  inferences  ever  mingling,  naturally  or 
inadvertently,  lawfully  or  unlawfully,  with  our  knowledge  ;  and 
he  confounds  these,  when  it  is  his  business,  as  a  professed  philo- 
sopher, to  distinguisli  them  in  theory  —  as  men  of  common  sense 
ever  distinguish  tliem  in  practice.  His  system  is  not  clearness,  but 
confusion.  He  has  dived  below  tlie  surface,  but  has  not,  after  all, 
gone  down  to  the  bottom  so  as  to  sec  all,  and  his  view  of  the  deep 
is  more  obscure  than  if  he  had  remained  above.  Amazed  or 
enraptured  witli  the  discovery  of  certain  facts  immediately  below 
that  which  is  patent  to  the  vulgar  eye,  ho  looks  on  them  as  the 
main  or  sole  facts,  and  iienceforth  overlooks  all  the  superficial 
ones,  forgetting  that  it  is  true  in  philosophy,  as  in  geology,  that 
the  rock  strata  which  jut  out  into  the  most  prominent  peaks  are 
those  which,  if  we  follow  them,  dive  down  into  the  deepest  interior. 
He  has  sought  to  attain  a  higher  position,  but  lias  stopped  half- 
way, and  his  views,  after  all,  are  not  so  clear  as  those  obtained 
further  down,  and  they  are  certainly  much  more  confusing  than 
those  which  he  might  have  had,  had  he  reached  the  clear  height 
above  all  dimming  influence  ;  they  are  at  best  like  those  which 
the  traveller  gets   on   cloudy  days  when  he  has  climbed  a  certain 


BOOKL]  ONTOLOGY.  327 

elevation  up  the  Alps,  and,  in  the  midway  mists,  catches  occasional 
glimpses  of  the  green  valleys  below  him,  and  of  the  imposing 
mountain-tops  and  sky  yet  far  above  him. 


SECT.  III.— ON  SCEPTICISM. 

Scepticism  may  assume  a  variety  of  forms,  which,  however,  differ 
only  in  some  being  more  thorough-going  than  others,  some  deny- 
ing the  veracit}^  of  certain  of  our  cognitions,  others  denying  the 
trustworthiness  of  all.  Like  most  kinds  of  folly,  it  commonly  does 
not  reach  its  last  stage  at  once,  but  advances  step  by  step.  Some 
philosopher  of  eminence  sets  aside  one  of  our  intuitions,  and  then 
an  advancing  thinker,  impelled  by  logical  consistency,  or  by  the 
sharpness  of  his  mind,  or  by  levity,  or  wantonness,  or  by  the  love 
of  paradox  or  of  notoriety,  shows  how,  on  the  same  ground,  we 
may  deny  them  all.  It  was  thus  that  Berkeley,  in  denying  the 
substantial  existence  of  body,  prepared  the  way  for  Hume,  who 
denied  the  substantial  existence  of  spirit  ;  and  thus  that  Kant,  iu 
affirming  that  space  and  time  had  no  existence  out  of  the  mind, 
opened  a  path  for  Fichte,  when  he  declared  that  the  external  object 
in  space  might  also  be  the  creation  of  the  mind  ;  and  for  Schelling 
and  Hegei  when  they  made  mind  and  matter,  Creator  and  crea- 
ture, all  and  alike  ideal."  I  have  already  discussed  scepticism  dis- 
guised as  idealism  ;  I  am  now  to  offer  a  few  remarks  on  an  avowed 
scepticism. 

Let  us  understand  precisely  how  far  a  sceptic  may  go.  In  doing 
so  it  is  essential  to  remember  the  distinction  between  the  spon- 
taneous and  reflex  use  of  our  intuitions.  Under  the  first  of  these 
aspects  they  not  only  claim  authority,  they  secure  practical  con- 
currence and  obedience.  Every  man  knows  that  he  has  a  bodily 
frame,  and  believes  that  it  exists  in  space,  and  that  if  he  would  go 
in  the   nearest  way  to  a  given    point,  he   must  walk  in  a  straight 

1  Thus  Sir  W.  Il.amilton  says  {Melaph.  Lect.)  :  "  Suppose  that  the  total  object  of  conscious- 
ness in  perception=12;  and  suppose  that  the  external  reality  contributes  0,  the  mateiial  O, 
and  the  mind  3  ;  this  may  enable  you  to  form  some  rude  conjecture  of  tlie  object  of  percep- 
tion." Surely  there  is  a  wide  door  here  opened  to  idealism,  and  no  means  left  of  clieclviug 
its  entrance. "  For  we  arc  not  told  bow  to  distinguish  between  what  is  got  from  without, 
and  what  is  given  from  within.  See  the  consequences  infra,  in  Supplem.  sect.  vi.  and 
riii.,  pp.  340,  344. 


328  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

line.  Doubt  and  denial  arc  possible  only  in  regard  to  the  reflex 
statement  of  intuitive  principles.  Every  man  is  in  fact  convinced 
that  he  has  a  solid  bodily  frame,  and  that  the  nearest  way  to  a 
particular  place  is  a  straight  line ;  but  it  is  possible  for  him,  if  he 
chooses,  to  deny  the  propositions  in  which  these  truths  are  con- 
veyed ;  it  is  quite  competent  for  him  speculatively  to  assert  that 
he  has  not  a  body,  and  that  the  shortest  road  to  a  given  point  is 
a  crooked  line. 

And  this  leads  me  to  point  out  in  what  respects  scepticism  may 
be  allowable,  and  wherein  it  may  even  be  beneficial.  The  dog- 
matist often  lays  down  and  employs  for  purposes  lawful  and 
unlawful,  principles  represented  as  indisputable,  which  ha.ve  not 
the  sanction  of  our  constitution,  or  which  may  be  expressed  in  a 
form  only  partially  or  approximately  correct.  Great  interests 
may  often  be  involved  in  having  tliese  principles  doubted  or 
disputed.  Without  this  we  may  find,  before  we  are  aware  of  it> 
great  moral  or  religious  truths  assaulted  or  undermined  ;  or  we 
may  set  up  for  defence  of  the  citadel  of  truth  a  crazy  and  insecure 
turret,  which  is  a  positive  weakness,  and  which,  as  it  falls,  may 
give  an  easier  inlet  to  the  enemy.  This,  then,  is  the  special 
mission  of  the  sceptic  :  it  is  to  lay  a  restraint  on  the  dogmatist ; 
at  times,  if  need  be,  to  assail  or  to  lash  him.  It  would  be  wrong 
to  deny  that  the  scepticism  of  Hume  lias  cleared  the  philosophic 
atmosphere  of  many  weakening  and  deleterious  influences  which  had 
beeen  gathering  for  centuries.  The  great  sin  of  scepticism  lies  in 
this,  that  it  attacks  indiscriminately  tlie  good  and  the  evil,  and 
would  destroy  both  as  by  a  consuming  fire.  But  surely  there  may 
be  a  means  of  securing  all  the  good  ends  which  scepticism  has 
produced,  without  the  accompanying  destruction  of  the  good. 
Socrates  seems  to  me  to  have  succeeded  in  this,  when  he  attacked 
the  pretentious  systems  of  his  age,  at  the  same  time  that  he  held 
resolutely  by  every  great  moral  and  spiritual  truth.  Let  it  be 
admitted  that  our  spontaneous  convictions  guarantee  a  truth,  but 
let  it  be  avowed  at  the  same  time  that  any  given  philosophic 
er.pression  of  them  is  fallible,  and  may  be  doubted,  disputed,  and 
denied.  Let  it  be  understood,  as  to  every  philosophic  principle 
proffered,  tliat  we  are  entitled,  nay,  in  duty  bound,  to  examine  it 


BOOK  I.]  ONTO  LOG  7,  329 

before  we  assent  to  it,  and  that  the  burden  of  establishing  that  it 
is  a  thorough  transcript  of  the  law  in  the  mind  lies  on  him  who 
employs  it.  By  this  simple  rule,  rigidly  enforced  and  scrupulously 
followed,  we  might  have  all  the  benefits  which  have  arisen  from 
the  siftings  of  scepticisms,  without  its  fearful  throes,  and  its  slaugh- 
ters— terrible  as  those  of  a  battle-field — of  noble  credences  and 
inspiring  hopes. 

But  what  are  we  to  do  witli  the  sceptic,  that  is,  with  one  who 
speculatively  denies  intuitive  truth  ? 

1.  There  are  some  things  which  we  ought  not  to  do  with  him.  We 
should  not  waste  our  precious  feeling  in  professing  to  sympathize 
with  him,  as  if  he  weue  practically  troubled  with  doubts  as  to  the 
existence  of  himself,  or  his  friends,  or  his  enemies,  or  his  food,  or  his 
money,  or  his  earthly  interests  ;  for  in  respect  of  all  these  he  is 
quite  as  firm  a  believer  as  the  man  who  comes  to  convince  him  with 
an  apparatus  of  argument.  Nor  need  we  be  at  the  trouble  of  appoint- 
ing a  guard  to  watch  him  lest  he  run  against  a  carriage,  or  step  into 
a  river,  or  fall  over  a  precipice.  For  whatever  he  may  profess  to  us 
or  to  himself,  he  believes  in  the  existence  of  the  carriage,  the  river, 
and  the  precipice,  and  has  a  salutaiy  awe  of  their  perilous  power. 
Nor  would  there  be  any  propriety  in  declaring  him  mad,  and  sending 
him  to  Bedlam,  for  he  only  pretends  to  liave  lost  his  senses,  or  rather, 
never  to  have  had  them,  and  in  his  simulation  has  over-acted  his 
part,  and  gone  beyond  the  madman,  who  never  sets  himself  against 
intuitive  truth.' 

2.  There  are  some  things  which  we  cannot  do  with  the  sceptic, 
and  therefore  should  not  attempt  to  do.  We  cannot  answer  him 
by  argument,  that  is,  mediate  proof;  for  this,  if  followed  suflBciently 
far  back,  will  conduct  us  to  a  principle  which  cannot  be  proven, 
and  which  therefore  the  sceptic  will  deny.  It  can  scarcely  be 
regarded  as  a  complete  refutation  to  demonstrate  that  his  sceptical 

*  M.  Morel  was  asked  to  examine  a  prisoner  who  pretended  to  be  deranged,  and  asked 
bim  how  old  he  was ;  to  which  the  prisoner  replied,  "  2-15  francs,  S5  ceutinies,  124 
carriages,"  etc.  To  the  same  question,  more  distinctly  asked,  he  replied,  "  5  metres,  75 
cenUmctres."  When  asked  how  long  he  had  been  deranged,  he  answered,  "  Cats,  always 
cuts."  JI.  Morel  at  once  proclaimed  his  madness  to  be  simulated,  and  states,  — '' lu 
their  extreme  aberrations,  in  their  most  furious  delirium,  madmen  do  not  confound  what 
it  is  impossible  for  the  most  extravagant  logic  to  coufound."  (See  JPisychological  Journal, 
October,  1857.) 


330  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

deuials  arc  inconsistent  witli  certain  nflirmations  made  Ly  him ; 
for  lie  may  admit  the  inconsistencies,  and  tlicn  found  his  argument 
against  the  possibility  of  discovering  trutli,  on  the  circumstance 
that  he  and  every  other  must  inevitably  fall  into  contradictions. 
It  is  not  even  a  confutation  when  it  is  shown  that  this  scepticism 
is  suicidal,  or  violates  tlic  law  of  contradiction,  for  he  may  find  no 
position  so  suited  to  him  as  tliat  wliicli  maintains  that  all  knowledge 
is  contradictory. 

Still  there  arc  some  things  wliicli  wc  can  do  for  or  witli  tlie  sceptic. 

I.  We  may  make  use  of  any  admissions  avowed  Ijy  him  or  in- 
cidentally made,  in  order  to  shut  him  up  into  truths  which  ho 
denies.  Sometimes  we  may  be  able  to  show  that  the  truth  which 
he  allows  implies  tlie  trutli  wliich  he  disallows.  In  other  cases 
we  can  a:^k  him  on  what  jjrhiciple  or  ground  he  assents  to  certain 
truths }  and  when  we  have  his  answer,  we  may  be  able  to  show 
how,  on  the  same  grounds,  he  must  admit  other  propositions. 
Thus  we  ask  tlie  Berkeleian  on  what  ground  he  admits  the  exist- 
ence of  the  subject  mind  ;  and,  wliatcvcr  it  be,  we  may  show  that 
the  same  ground  supports  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  the 
object  matter.  Thus  too  we  may  ask  how  it  is  that  Kant  admits 
the  existence  of  a  thing  behind  the  phenomenon,  and  by  help  of 
tliis  process  prove  that  tli(,'  iilionoincnon  is  tlic  thing.  If  Fichte 
admit  an  Ego,  or  a  self,  or  a  belief,  it  is  competent  to  proceed 
thereon  to  show  that  we  are  thereby  constrained  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  objects  out  of  self  and  independent  of  our  belief.' 
This  argumenium  ad  hominem  is  perfectly  allowable.  We  can  say 
to  him.  If  you  admit  fJn's,  yon  must  also  admit  that.  If  he  is  so 
guarded  and  stinted  in  his  admissions  as  to  say  that  he  allows 
this  merely  practically,  and  not  theoretically  or  absolutely,  we  are 
entitled  to  demand  f)f  him  tliat  he  likewise  believe  that  practi- 
cally. Thus,  if  he  admit  practically  that  he  has  at  any  time  had 
(what  Hume  allows  at  the  outset)  an  impression,  or  idea,  wc  may 
show  him  that  he  should  also  admit   practically  that  he   has   an 

'  It  is  tliiis  lliat  when  Professor  Fcrrier  declares  that  we  know  the  object  mfcum,  we 
can  show  that  on  tlie  same  ground,  whatever  it  be,  he  should  admit  an  object  independ- 
ent of  the  me.  He  says,  {Scottish  PhiloBophy.,  pp.  10,  20),  that  "  no  man  in  his  senses 
could  require  a  proof  that  it  [that  is,  real  existence]  is."  I  am  glad  of  this  appeal.  A 
man's  senses  tell  us  that  the  stone  before  us  has  an  existence  independent  of  the  contem- 
plative mind. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  331 

abiding  and  an  identical  self,  and  tliat  lie  contemplates  objects  out 
of  him,  and  independent  of  him,  and,  as  more  important,  that 
lie  should  admit  practically  that  he  is  a  responsible  being,  and 
must  give  account  of  himself.  Should  he  try  to  save  himself,  by 
declaring  that  he  believes  the  first,  or  second,  or  third  of  those 
truths,  only  because  obliged  to  do  so,  we  may  show  that  there  is  a 
similar  necessity  requiring  him  to  believe  the  rest.  This  is  a 
telling  argument,  which  has  been  used  with  great  skill  and  power 
by  many  of  the  opponents  of  scepticism  in  all  ages.  It  is  em- 
phatically an  argumentum  ad  Jiominem,  for  it  ig  one  which  may  be 
used  not  merely  against  a  particular  individual,  but  with  men  as 
men,  with  every  man.  No  man  but  admits  something,  and  that 
something  may  be  employed  to  make  him  admit  something  else. 
It  can  be  shown  that  he  who  doubts  believes,  that  he  who  denies 
affirms,  and  that  he  who  doubts  or  denies  that  he  doubts  or  denies, 
is  in  the  very  act  of  making  an  affirmation.  Such  a  process  goes 
at  least  to  shut  the  mouth  of  the  sceptic,  for  if  he  open  his  mouth, 
it  is  to  let  out  a  weapon  which  you  can  turn  against  him.  His 
only  refuge  is  in  a  thorough-going  scepticism,  which  affirms  that 
man's  supposed  knowledge  is  contradictory,  and  that  all  argument 
is  delusive.  You  can  at  least  insist  on  this  scepticism  that  it 
remain  silent,  and  not  advance  arguments  which  are  inconsistent 
with  that  judgment  or  belief  to  which  it  would  appeal. 

II.  We  can  carefully  explain  the  nature  of  a  primitive  convic- 
tion. The  method  referred  to  under  last  head  is  one  which  we 
may  quite  legitimately  employ  in  dealing  with  the  sophist  or  the 
caviller  ;  we  may  always  kill  him  with  his  own  weapons.  But  we 
liave  a  more  satisfactory  mode  of  dealing  with  the  truth-seeking 
and  the  truth-loving.  We  can  ask  them  to  examine  the  nature  of 
the  convictions  to  which  we  invite  them  to  yield. 

1.  It  can  be  shown  that  the  mind  declares  of  itself  that  its 
primitive  perceptions  contain  knowledge.  I  do  not  urge  this  as 
a  mediate  proof,  or  a  new  and  independent  proof;  it  is  simply  the 
statement  of  a  fact,  that  the  mind,  in  contemplating  its  original 
convictions,  affirms  that  there  is  knowledge  in  them.  As  to  some 
of  its  states,  it  finds  that  they  contain  sensations,  sentiments, 
imaginations,  but  in  every  one  of  them,  at  the  same  time,  a  cogni- 


332  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

tion  of  self,  and  in  certain  of  tlicm  a  cognition  of  an  object  or  truth 
external  to  self  and  independent  of  it.  It  is  to  these  that  we  ask 
consent  without  tlic  aid  of  further  evidence. 

2.  It  may  be  shown  that  the  intuitive  principles  of  the  mind 
are  native,  catholic,  necessary.  It  is  not  truth  merely  to  the  in- 
dividual man,  hut  to  all  men  ;  not  merely  to  all  men,  but  to  all 
intelligent  beings.  It  is  certain  not  only  to  me  but  to  all  beings 
throughout  the  universe  who  have  capacity  to  understand  it,  that 
if  two  straight  lines  proceed  an  inch  without  coming  nearer,  they 
will  proceed  a  million  of  miles  without  coming  nearer  ;  and  not 
only  is  the  wilful  infliction  of  pain  a  sin  on  earth,  it  is  a  sin  in 
every  other  part  of  the  universe. 

3.  The  mind  declares  of  certain  truths  that  they  need  no  other 
truth  to  support  them.  There  are  cases  in  which  it  feels  that  it 
needs  evidence  in  order  to  gain  its  assent.  It  does  not  allow  that 
there  was  such  a  man  as  David,  king  of  Israel,  or  Philip,  king  of 
Macedon,  till  proof  is  brought  forward.  It  may  remain  in  doubt 
as  to  what  truth  there  is  in  the  poetical  accounts  of  the  siege  of 
Troy,  because  no  valid  evidence  is  produced.  But  it  draws  a 
distinction  between  these  cases  and.  others  in  which  it  needs  no 
probation.  When  it  is  asserted  that  the  moon  is  inhabited,  the 
mind  asks  proof,  but  it  asks  none  when  it  is  affirmed  that  I  am  the 
same  person  yesterday  as  I  was  to-day.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
first  of  these  assertions  might  be  substantiated  by  evidence  which 
would  command  our  assent,  but  it  would  not,  after  all,  be  a  more 
rational  assent  than  that  which  we  give  at  once  to  the  other. 

4.  The  mind  knows  self-evident  truth  to  be  the  most  certain  of 
all  truths.  What  is  it  that  the  sceptic  demands  ?  It  is  _all- 
important  to  put  this  question,  and  to  fix  him  down  to  a  specific 
answer.  Docs  he  demand  proof  or  argument  ?  Then  it  implies 
that  he  would  be  satisfied  with  argument.  But  it  can  be  shown 
him  that  in  argument  there  is  a  first  principle  involved,  the  depend- 
ence of  conclusion  on  premises,  and  in  the  last  resort  we  come  to 
a  premiss  not  admitting  of  probation.  But  surely  he  who  admits 
argument  must  admit  all  that  is  in  argument ;  but  as  to  the 
premiss  with  which  we  set  out,  it  is  not  less  evident,  it  is  more 
evident  than  the  conclusion.     It  is  so  far  a  weakness  in  a  pro* 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  333 

position,  or  rather,  of  our  mind  in  reference  to  it,  that  we  do  not 
see  it  to  be  true  or  false  immediately.  The  mind  declares  that  the 
most  certain  of  all  truths  are  those  wliich  are  seen  to  be  true  at 
once  and  in  themselves. 

III.  It  can  be  shown  that  tliere  is  a  congruity  and  consistency 
among  the  original  and  derivative  convictions  of  the  mind.  This 
is  not  urged  as  if  it  were  an  independent  and  unassailable  demon- 
stration. It  is  conceivable  that  the  power  from  which  human 
power  derives  its  power  might  have  made  all  men  liable  to  decep- 
tion, incapable  of  being  ever  detected,  in  consequence  of  its  being 
carefully  provided  that  no  inconsistencies  should  creep  in.  This 
is  certainly  possible,  though  it  is  by  no  means  probable,  according, 
at  least,  to  our  laws  of  judgment.  For,  if  this  power  be  a  Being 
possessed  of  goodness  and  truth,  it  is  not  conceivable  that  he 
should  form  any  creature  liable  to  be  deceived  :  and,  if  it  be  a 
capricious  or  malignant  power,  it  is  by  no  means  probable  that  all 
the  deceptions  would  turn  out  to  be  congruous :  hero  or  there 
would  come  out  an  original  conviction  in  manifest  contradiction 
to  another  original  conviction,  or  a  derivative  principle  openly 
inconsistent  with  botli.  The  consistency  of  the  parts  is  thus  a  sort 
of  corroboration  of  the  truth  of  each  part  and  of  the  whole.  To 
give  only  two  examples.  It  is  by  intuition,  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show,  that  the  intellect,  on  discovering  an  effect,  looks  for  cause, 
and  it  always  finds,  in  fact,  that  for  every  effect  there  is  a  cause  ; 
and  as  it  finds  this  again  and  again,  in  an  extended  and  invariable 
experience,  it  has  in  tliis,  not  a  primary  proof,  but  a  secondary 
confirmation  of  its  intuition.  Again,  we  expect  that  sin  will  not 
go  unpunished ;  from  time  to  time  we  find  it  punished  in  this  life, 
and  are  thus  strengthened  in  our  convictions  that  it  will  all  be 
punished  at  last.  All  the  intuitions  have  such  corroborations  in 
the  daily  experience  of  every  man,  and  these  are  felt  to  give  a 
satisfaction  to  the  mind." 

I  Speaking  of  primary  convictions  of  the  mind,  Hamilton  says :  "  They  are  many,  they 
are  in  authority  coordinate,  and  their  testimony  is  clear  and  precise.  It  is  therefore  com- 
petent for  us  to  view  them  in  correlation  ;  to  compare  their  declarations  ;  and  to  consider 
whether  they  contradict,  and,  by  contradicting,  invalidate  each  other.  This  mutual  con- 
tradiction is  possible  in  two  ways : — ls<,  it  may  be  that  the  primary  data  theinsdves  are 
directly  or  immediately  contradictory  of  each  other.  Id,  It  may  be  that  they  are  mediately 
or  indirectly  contradictory,  inasmuch  as  the  consequences  to  which  they  necessarily  lead, 


334  3IETAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

IV.  When  wc  reach  the  great  truth  that  there  is  a  righteous 
God,  we  can  plead  the  Divine  yeracity  in  fiivour  of  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  intuitive  convictions  planted  b}'  him  in  our 
constitution.  Not  that  even  this  consideration  can  be  adduced  as 
a  primary  or  an  absolute  proof ;  for  it  is  only  on  the  supposition 
tliat  a  God  exists  that  it  can  be  legitimately  employed,  and  our 
conviction  of  the  Divine  existence  presupposes  a  confidence  in  the 
veracity  of  our  intuitions  and  arginiients  founded  on  them.  But 
tliis  truth,  being  once  admitted,  becomes  henccfortli  the  keystone 
which  keeps  all  the  separate  and  independent  parts  of  our  consti- 
tution in  one  compact  and  stable  whole,  which  can  never  be  broken 
down,  but  will  be  felt  to  be  the  stronger  the  greater  the  weight  that 
is  laid  upon  it. 

V.  No  truths,  recognised  by  the  mind  as  such,  can  be  shown  to 
be  contradictory.  In  this  line  of  thought  a  sound  metaphysics 
may  accomplish  some  good  ends.  Sceptics  have  laboured — and 
others  not  sceptics  have  done  their  best  to  aid  them — to  prove  that 
certain  propositions  approved  of  by  the  mind  are  contradictory. 
But  the  attempt  has  failed,  as  can  be  shown,  I  believe,  as  to  every 
case  in  which  it  has  been  tried.'  It  can  be  proved,  in  regard  to 
the  opposed  propositions,  that,  in  some  cases,  they  have  no  mean- 
ing ;  tliat,  in  other  cases,  the  mind  pronounces  in  favour  of  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  ;  that,  in  several  cases,  the  propositions  seem 
to  be  contradictory  only  because  improperly  stated,  and  when 
they  are  properly  enunciated  the  difficulty  altogether  disappears ; 
and  that,  in  the  remaining  cases,  tliere  is  merely  a  difficulty 
in  proposing  a  positive  reconciliation,  and  no  actual  incon- 
sistency. 

There  is  little  risk  of  scepticism  producing  any  injurious  influ- 
ence in  the  common  business  of  life.  The  reason  is,  that  circum- 
stances ever  pressing   on   the   attention   constrain   men  to  proceed 

and  for  tlic  truth  and  falsehood  of  which  they  are  therefore  responsible,  are  mutually 
repugnant.  By  evincing  either  of  these,  the  veracity  of  consciousness  will  be  disproved ; 
for,  in  either  case,  consciousness  is  shown  to  be  inconsistent  with  itself,  and  consequently 
inconsistent  with  the  unity  of  truth.  But  by  no  other  process  of  demonstration,  is  this 
possible."  He  adds:  "No  attempt  to  show  that  the  data  of  consciousness  are  (either  in 
themselves  or  in  their  necessary  consequences)  mutually  contradictory  has  yet  succeeded" 
(Reid's  Coll.  Writings,  pp.  745,  746). 
•  See  an  examination  of  Kant's  attempt,  infra,  Sect.  v.  p.  333. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  335 

on  their  spontaneous  principles,  wliicli  are  sound,  even  when  the 
speculative  principles  are  altogether  infidel.  He  who  is  hungry 
will  partake  of  food,  he  wlio  sees  an  offensive  weapon  about  to 
strike  him  will  avoid  it,  even  though  they  be  not  prepared  to  avow, 
as  philosophers,  that  there  are  any  sucli  gross  things  as  bread  or 
iron  in  the  universe,  or  though  they  may  doubt,  as  metaphysicians, 
whether  food  be  fitted  to  nourish,  or  a  sword  to  kill.  It  is  not 
iu  such  urgent  matters  of  animal  comfort  and  temporal  interest 
that  scepticism  is  wont  to  manifest  itself,  but  in  far  different  sub- 
jects, and  especially  in  leading  persons  to  doubt  of  the  great  truths 
of  morality  and  religion,  the  practical  action  iu  which  is  more 
under  the  control  of  the  will.  Even  here  there  will  be  times  when 
the  spontaneous  belief  or  impulse  will  overmaster  the  speculative 
unbelief,  as  when  moral  indignation,  implying  a  belief  in  the 
reality  of  sin,  is  excited  by  a  mean  or  dishonest  action,  or  when 
disease  has  seized  us,  and  death  seems  in  hard  pursuit,  and  threatens 
to  hurry  us  to  the  judgment-seat.  Such  occasions  will  call  forth 
the  action  of  conscience,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  repress  it.  But 
when  there  is  nothing  of  this  description  to  arouse  the  native 
feeling,  unbelief  may  succeed  in  keeping  us  very  much  out  of  the 
way  of  all  that  would  call  the  internal  sentiment  into  activity,  and 
for  days,  or  weeks,  or  months  togetlier  it  may  seldom  arise  to  utter 
a  protest  or  create  a  disturbance  of  any  description  ;  and,  even 
when  the  deeper  moral  or  religious  powers  come  forth  to  assert 
their  authority,  there  may  be  a  vigorous,  and,  so  far,  a  successful 
warfare  waged  with  them  ;  that  is,  they  may  be  so  far  repressed 
as  not  to  command  the  will,  or  lead  to  any  practical  operation. 
Hence  the  evil  of  scepticism,  in  chilling  the  ardour  of  youth,  and 
confirming  the  hardness  of  age,  in  repressing  every  noble  aspira- 
tion and  every  high  effort,  while  it  leaves  tlie  soul  the  servant  or 
slave  of  the  lower,  the  sensual,  the  ambitious,  the  proud,  or  the 
selfish  impulses  of  the  heart. 

SECT.  IV.— ON  THE  CONDITIONED  AND  THE  UNCONDITIONED. 

Leibnitz  complained  of   Sophie  Charlotte  of   Prussia   that    she 
asked  the  why  of  the  ^vhj.     There  arc  some  truths  in  regard  to 


330  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

whieli  we  arc  not  warranted  to  ask  tlie  why.  They  shine  in  their 
own  liglit ;  and  we  feel  that  we  need  no  light,  and  we  ask  no  light, 
wherewith  to  see  them,  and  any  ligh.t  which  might  be  brought  to 
aid  would  only  perplex  us.  In  all  such  cases  the  mind  asks  no 
why,  and  is  amazed  when  the  why  is  asked  ;  and  feels  that  it  can 
o-ive  no  answer,  and  ought  not  to  attempt  an  answer.  Otlier  truths 
may  be  known  only  mediately,  or  by  means  ci"  some  other  truth 
coming  between  as  evidence.  I  need  no  n'lcdiate  proof  to  convince 
me  that  I  exist,  or  that  I  Iiold  an  <-bject  in  my  hand  which  I  call 
a  pen  ;  but  I  need  evidence  to  convince  me  that  tliere  are  inhabit- 
ants iu  India,  or  that  there  is  'a  cycle  of  spots  presented  in  the  sun's 
rotation.  In  regard  to  this  class  of  truths  I  am  entitled— nay, 
required— to  ask  the  lohy-  Not  only  so  ;  if  the  truth  urged  as  evi- 
dence is  not  self-evident,  I  may  ask  the  ivlnj  of  the  tohy,  and  tlie 
u-liy  of  that  ichy,  on  and  on,  till  we  come  to  a  self-evident  truth, 
when  the  ichy  becomes  unintelligible.  Now  we  may  say  of  the 
one  class  of  truths  that  they  depend  (to  us)  on  no  condition,  and 
call  them  Unconditioned  ;  whereas  we  must  call  the  other  Condi- 
tioned, for  our  rational  nature  demands  another  truth  as  a  condition 
of  our  assenting  to  them. 

But  this  is  not  precisely  what  is  meant,  or  all  that  is  meant,  by 
conditioned  and  unconditioned  in  philosophic  nomenclature.  We 
find  that  not  only  does  one  truth  depend  on  another  as  evidence  to 
our  minds,  but  one  thing  as  an  existence  depends  on  another. 
Everything  falling  under  our  notice  on  earth  is  dependent  on  some 
other  thing  as  its  cause.  All  physical  events  proceed  from  a 
concurrence  of  previous  circumstances.  All  animated  beings  come 
from  a  parentage.  But  is  everything  that  exists  thus  a  dependent 
link  in  a  chain  which  hangs  on  nothing?  There  are  intellectual 
instincts  which  recoil  from  such  a  thouglit.  Tlicre  are  intuitions 
which,  proceeding  on  facts  ever  pressing  themselves  on  the  atten- 
tion, lead  to  a  very  different  result.  By  our  intuitive  conviction 
in  rco-ard  to  substance,  we  are  introduced  to  that  which  has  power 
of  itself.  True,  we  discover  that  all  mundane  substances,  spiritual 
and  material,  have  in  fact  been  originated,  and  have  proceeded 
from  something  anterior  to  them.  But  then  intuitive  reason 
presses  us  on,  and  we  seek  for  a  cause  of  that  cause  which  is 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  337 

furtlicst  removed  from  our  view.'  Pursuiiif^  various  lines,  external 
and  internal,  we  come  to  a  substance  Avhicli  lias  no  mark  of  being 
an  eiiect ;  to  a  substance  who  is  the  cause,  and,  as  such,  the  intelli- 
gent cause,  of  all  the  order  and  adaptation  of  one  thing  to  another 
in  tlie  universe ;  who  is  the  founder  of  the  moral  power  within  us, 
and  the  sanctioner  of  the  moral  law  to  wliich  it  looks,  and  who  seems 
to  be  that  of  Infinite  Existence  to  which  our  faith  in  infinity  is  ever 
pointing, — and  now  the  mind  in  all  itr,  intuitions  is  satisfied.  The 
intuitive  belief  as  to  power  in  substance  is  satisfied ;  the  intuitive 
belief  in  the  adequacy  of  the  cause  to  produce  its  effects  is  satisfied  ; 
tlie  native  moral  conviction  is  satisfied  ;  and  the  belief  in  infinity  is 
satisfied.  True,  every  step  in  this  process  is  not  intuitive  or  demon- 
strative— there  may  be  more  than  one  experiential  link  in  the  chain  ; 
but  the  intuitive  convictions  enter  very  largely  j  and  when  experi- 
ence has  furnished  its  quota,  they  are  gratified,  and  feel  as  if  they 
had  nothing  to  demand  beyond  this  One  Substance  possessed  of  all 
power  and  of  all  perfection. 

If  we  would  avoid  the  utmost  possible  confusion  of  thought,  we 
must  distinguish  between  these  two  kinds  of  conditioned  and  un- 
conditioned ;  the  one  referring  to  human  knowledge,  and  the  dis- 
cussion of  it  falling  properly  under  Gnosiology ;  the  other  to 
existence,  and  so  falling  under  Ontology.  The  conditional,  in 
respect  of  knowledge,  does,  if  we  pursue  the  conditioned  sufficiently 
far,  conduct  at  last  to  primary  truths,  which  are  to  us  uncondi- 
tioned. These  are  the  first  truths  which  we  have  been  seeking  to 
seize  and  express  in  this  treatise.  We  cannot  be  made  to  think 
or  believe  that  these  primary  truths  should  not  be  positive  truths, 
and  regarded  as  trutlis  by  all  other  beings  capable  of  comprehend- 
ing them.  But  it  is  to  be  carefully  remarked,  and  ever  allowed, 
that  some  of  those  truths  which  are  original  and  independent  to 
us,  may  be  seen  by  higher  intelligences  to  be  dependent  on,  or  to 
be  necessarily  interlinked  with,  other  truths.     We  may  by  patient 

'  It  is  a  favourite  principle  witli  Ariatotle  that  there  cannot  be  an  infinite  series  of 
causes ;  sec,  in  particular,  Melaph.  i.  Minor,  ii.,  where  he  supports  his  doctrine  by  very 
subtle  reasoning.  The  principle  has  been  sanctioned  by  most  profound  thinkers;  see 
Clarke,  Demons,  nf  Being  and  Attrib.  of  God,  n.,  where  the  proposition  is  supported  by 
very  doubtful  metaphysics.  I  am  inclined  to  think  we  come  to  the  principle  by  finding 
that  in  following  various  lines  we  come  to  a  stop  ;  particularly,  in  following  substance  and 
quality,  we  come  to  self-existent  substance  ;  see  supra,  p.  23G. 
22 


338  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

inductiou  ascertain  what  arc  to  us  unconditioned  truths  ;  but  it 
would  be  presumptuous  in  us  to  pretend  to  determine  what  truths 
are  so  in  themselves,  and  arc  seen  to  be  such  by  the  omniscient 
God.  Again,  as  to  conditioned  and  unconditioned  existence,  it  is 
quite  clear  that  notliing  falls  under  our  notice  in  this  world  which 
is  absolutely  unconditioned.  But  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the 
mind,  proceeding  on  a  fc^r  oi)viou3  facts,  lead  us  by  an  easy  pro- 
cess to  an  unconditioned  Bei^-.g. — that  is,  whose  existence  depends 
on  no  other.^ 

But  the  question  is  started,  Can  wc  conceive  the  Unconditioned  ? 
Of  truth  unconditioned  to  us  we  can  conceive.  It  consists,  in  fact, 
of  that  body  of  truths  on  which  we  are  ever  falling  back  in  the 
last  resort,  in  other  words,  of  those  original  perceptions  and  prin- 
ciples which  I  have  been  seeking  to  unfold  in  this  treatise.  But 
can  Ave  conceive  of  unconditioned  existence?  I  find  no  difficulty 
in  doino-  so.  Our  intellectual  and  moral  convictions  are  not  satis- 
fied  till  we  reach  underived  being.  I  admit  the  word  "  uncondi- 
tioned "  is  negative,  it  implies  merely  the  removal  of  a  condition. 
But  we  remove  the  condition,  because  we  come  to  cases  where  our 
intuitive  reason  does  not  insist  on  it,  and  where  our  intuitive  per- 
ceptions rest  on  underived  existence.  Pursuing  any  one  of  our 
native  convictions,  cognitive,  fiducial,  judicial,  or  moral,  it  conducts 
us  to,  and  falls  back  on  an  object  of  whom  we  have  a  positive 
conception,  that  he  is  a  Being  from  whom  all  conditions  are 
removed,  and  whose  existence  and  perfections  are  themselves 
underived,  while  they  are  the  source  of  all  power  and  excellence 
in  the  creature. 

SECT.  \ .-{SUPPLEMENTABY.)-!:}!^.  ANTINOMIES  OF  KANT. 

Kant  tries  to  show  tliat  tlie  speculative  reason  conducts  to  propositions  which 
are  contradictoiy  of  each  other  {Kritih  d.  r.  Vern.  p.  338).  It  follows  that  it 
cannot  be  trusted  in  any  of  its  enunciations.  Kant  extricates  himself  from  the 
practical  difficulties  in  which  he  was  thereby  involved,  by  declaring  that  the 

t  The  above  may  seom  to  some  rather  a  prosaic  account  of  a  subject  which  has  been  lost 
tn  such  high  anfl  dim  .speculations.  But  the  question  is,  Is  it  the  correct  version?  It 
seems  rather  an  arbitrary  use  of  language  on  the  part  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton  {Metaph.  Lect. 
C8)  to  make  the  Unconditioned  a  genus  including  two  species,  the  Infinite  and  Absolute. 
When  the  Unconditioned  is  referred  to,  let  us  always  understand  whether  it  means  uncon- 
ditioned in  thought  or  existence. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  339 

speculative  reason  Tvas  not  given  to  lead  us  to  positive  objective  truth,  and  by 
appealing  from  it  to  the  practical  reason.  It  is,  however,  always  competent  to 
the  sceptic  to  maintain  that,  if  the  speculative  reason  deceive  us,  so  also  may  the 
practical  reason.  The  doctiine  v/hich  I  hold  is,  that  the  reason  does  not  lead 
directly  nor  consequentially  to  any  such  contradictions.  In  regard  to  some  of 
the  counter-propositions,  Reason  seems  to  me  to  say  nothing  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other.  In  regard  to  others,  there  seem  to  be  intuitive  convictions,  but  the 
contradiction  arises  from  an  eiToneous  exjiosition  or  expression  of  them.  It  is 
of  course  easy,  on  such  abstruse  subjects,  to  construct  a  series  of  propositions 
which  may  seem  to  be  contradictoiy,  or  in  reality  be  contradictory — if  they  have 
a  meaning  at  all.  But  these  i^roi^ositions  wiU  be  found  not  to  be  the  expression 
of  the  actual  decisions  of  the  mind.  Let  us  examine  the  contradictions  which 
are  supposed  to  be  sanctioned  by  reason,  I  am  to  content  myself  with  looking 
at  the  propositions  themselves,  without  entering  on  the  elaborate  demonstrations 
of  them  by  Kant.  These  demonstrations  j)roceed  on  the  peculiar  Kantian  prin- 
ciples in  regard  to  phenomena,  space,  time,  and  the  natm'e  of  the  relations  which 
the  mind  can  discover,  and  these  I  have  been  seeking  to  undermine  aU  through- 
out this  treatise.  It  will  be  enough  here  to  show  that  Intuitive  Reason  sanc- 
tions no  contradictions  on  the  topics  to  which  Kant  refers. 

FIRST   ANTrPsOMY. 

The  world  has  a  beginning  in  time.  The  world  has  no  beginning  in  time, 

and  is  limited  in  regard  to  space.  and  no  limits  in  space,  but  is  in  regard 

to  both  infinite. 

Now  upon  this  I  have  to  remark,  first,  that  as  to  the  "  world,"  we  have,  so  far 
as  I  can  discover,  no  intuition  whatever.  We  have  merely  an  intuition  as  to 
certain  things  in  the  world,  or,  it  may  be,  out  of  the  world.  Our  reason  does 
declare  that  space  and  time  are  infinite,  but  it  does  not  declare  whether  the 
world  is  or  is  not  infinite  in  extent  and  duration.  We  shall  find  under  another 
antinomy  what  is  our  conviction  as  to  God.  Reason  does  not  declare  that  space 
or  time,  or  the  God  who  inhabits  them,  must  be  finite. 

SECOND  ANTINOirS-. 

Every  composite  substance  consists  No  composite  thing  can  consist  of 

of  simple  paints,  and   all  that  exists  simple  parts,  and  there  cannot  exist  in 

must  either  be  simple  or  composed  of  the  world  any  simple  substance. 
simple  pails. 

Our  leason  says  nothing  as  to  whether  things  are  or  are  not  made  up  of  simple 
substances.  Experience  cannot  settle  the  question  started  by  Kant  in  one  way 
or  other.  We  find  certain  things  composite :  these  we  know  are  made  up  of 
parts ;  but  we  cannot  say  how  far  the  decomposition  may  extend,  or  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  furthest  elements  reached. 

TnntD   ANTINOMY, 

Causality,  according  to  the  laws  of  There  is  no  such  thing  as  freedom, 

nature,  is  not  the  only  causality  operat-      but  everything  in  the  world  happens 
ing  to  originate  the  phenomena  of  the      according  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
world  ^  to  account  for  the  ijhenomena 
wc  must  have  a  causality  of  freedom. 

Here  I  think  reason  does  sanction  two  sets  of  facts.     One  ia  the  existence  of 


340  METAPHYSICS.  [part  iir. 

frcoclom  :  the  other  is  the  universal  preyalcnce  of  some  sort  of  causation,  which 
may  diiTer,  howeyer,  in  every  different  kind  of  object.  These  may  be  so  stated 
as  to  be  contradictory.  But  our  convictions  in  themselves  involve  no  contra- 
diction :  it  is  impossible  to  show  that  they  do  by  the  law  of  contradiction, 
which  is  that  "  A  is  not  Not-A."  "  There  is  some  sort  of  causation  even  iu 
voluntary  acts  ;"  and  "  the  will  is  free  ;"  no  one  can  show  that  these  two  pro- 
jjositions  are  contradictory. 

FOXJKTH   ANTIKOMY, 

There  exists  in  the  world,  or  in  con-  An  absolutely  necessary  being  does 

nexion  with  it,  as  a  part  or  as  the  cause  not  exist,  either  in  the  world  or  out  of 
of  it,  au  absolutely  necessary  being.  it,  as  the  cause  of  the  v/orld. 

Our  reason  seems  to  say  that  time  and  space  must  have  ever  existed,  and  must 
exist.  When  a  God  is  foimd,  by  an  easy  process  the  mind  is  led  by  intuition  to 
trace  up  these  effects  in  nature  to  Him  as  the  underived  substance.  No  contra- 
dictory proposition  can  be  established  either  by  reason  or  experience. 

A  little  patient  iuvestigation  of  our  actual  intuitions  will  show  that  all  these 
contradictions,  of  which  the  Kantians  and  Hegelians  make  so  much,  are  not  in 
our  constitutions,  but  in  the  ingenious  structures  fashioned  by  metaphysicians 
to  support  theii'  theories. 


SECT.  Yl.—{SUPPLEMEXTARY.)—0^  THE  RELATIVITY  OP  KNOWLEDGE. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  has  not  always  been  successful,  as  it  appears  to  me,  in 
fusing  what  he  adheres  to  in  the  realism  of  Reid  with  what  he  has  adopted 
from  the  forms  of  Kant.  His  own  special  theory  is  that  of  Relativity,  which 
acknovviedges  a  reality,  but  declares  that  we  can  never  know  it  except  under 
moditications  imposed  by  our  minds.  It  can  be  shown,  I  think,  that  there  is  a 
doctrine  of  relativity  which  has  been  proceeded  upon,  and  expressed,  though 
commonly  in  a  loose  way,  by  nearly  the  whole  chain  of  philosophers  from  the 
earliest  ages  of  reflective  thought  dovra  to  the  time  when  Schelling  and  Hegel 
propounded  the  philosophy  of  the  absolute,  which  has  been  overthrown  by 
Hamilton.  But  it  cannot  be  proven  that  the  great  body  of  metaphysicians 
would  have  acknov^ledged  the  peculiar  doctrine  of  the  Scottish  philosopher. 
There  is  evidently  a  true  doctrine  of  relativity,  if  only  we  could  express  it 
accurately.  It  should  be  admitted — (1.)  That  man  knows  only  so  far  as  he  has 
the  faculties  of  knowledge ;  (3.)  That  he  knows  objects  only  under  aspects 
l^resented  to  his  faculties ;  and  (3.)  That  his  faculties  are  limited,  and  conse- 
quently his  knowledge  limited,  so  that  not  only  does  he  not  know  all  objects  ; 
he  does  not  know  all  about  any  one  object.  It  may  further  be  allowed — (4.) 
That  iu  perception  by  the  senses,  we  know  external  objects  in  a  relation  to  the 
perceiving  mind.  But  while  these  views  can  be  established  in  opposition  to  the 
philosophy  of  the  absolute,  it  should  ever  be  resolutely  maintained  on  the  other 
hand — (1).  That  we  know  the  veiy  thing ;  and  (2.)  Tliat  our  knowledge  is  cor- 
rect so  far  as  it  goes.  We  admit  a  subtle  scepticism  when  we  allow,  with  Kaut, 
that  we  do  not  know  the  thing  itself,  but  merely  a  phenomenon  in  the  sense  of 
appearance  ;  or  with  Hamilton,  that  we  perceive  merely  the  relations  of  things. 
I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  mind  begins  with  the  knowledge  of  things, 
and  is  thence  able  to  compare  things  (see  suj^ra,  pp.  308-210).     A  still  more 


BOOK  I.]     .  ONTOLOGY.  341 

dangerous  error  foUows  where  it  is  affirmed  that  our  knowledge  is  always  modi- 
fied by  the  percipient  mind,  and  that  we  add  to  the  object  something  which  is 
not,  or  at  least  may  not,  be  in  it  (  see  supin,  p.  327). 

Dr.  JIansel,  in  his  able  and  learned  BamiMa  Lectures^  has  ai^plied  this  doc- 
trine of  relativity  to  the  knowledge  of  God,  with  the  view  of  undermining, 
which  he  has  successfully  done,  the  theology  of  the  absolute.  I  am  prepared  to 
show,  by  a  large  coUatiou  of  i^assages,  that  the  great  body  of  Christian  divines 
have  maiutained  two  important  points  in  regard  to  our  knowledge  of  God. 
One  is  that  man  cannot  rise  to  a  full  knowledge  of  God,  and  that  there  is  much 
in  God  which  we  cannot  know.  This  arises,  they  show,  from  the  greatness  of 
God,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  weakness  of  man  on  the  other.  But  they  also 
held  by  another  point,  that  man  may  truly  know  God  by  the  light  of  natm-e, 
and  still  more  specially  by  the  light  of  revelation.  No  doubt,  they  differ  in 
the  language  which  they  employ  to  set  forth  their  views  ;  their  mode  of  state- 
ment and  illustration  is  often  vague  and  loose ;  and  they  frequently  employ  the 
phrases  and  distinctions  of  philosophic  systems  whose  day  has  long  gone  by. 
Still  it  can  be  shown  that  they  meant  to  set  forth  both  these  truths.  To  quote 
only  a  few  passages  from  the  Fathers :— Irenaeus  is  translated,  "  luvisibilis  quidem 
pbterat  eis  ipse  (Deus)  propter  emiuentiam  :  ignotus  autem  nequaquam  propter 
providentiam "  {Contra  Omnes  Honret.  ii.  6).  Tertullian  says: — "Deus  ignotus 
er,se  non  debuit  "  {Adv.  Marcionern.,  iii.  3).  In  like  manner  Lactantius  : — "  Deus 
igitur  noscendus  est  iu  quo  solo  est  Veritas  "  {De  Ira.,  i.)  Augustine  illustrates 
what  we  can  know  of  God  thus : — "  Aliud  est  enim  videre,  aliud  est  totum 
\idendo  comprehendere  "  {Epist.  Class,  iii.  21 ;  see  another  passage,  supra^  j). 
160).  The  great  body  of  Chiistian  divines  have  certainly  not  maintained — 
(1.)  That  God  can  be  known  only  under  forms  or  modifications  imposed  by  the 
thinking  mind ;  (2.)  That  om-  idea  of  God's  eternity  and  omnipresence  is  simply 
negative ;  or  (3.)  That  man  has  a  faith  in  an  infinite  God,  with  no  corresi^ond- 
ing  knowledge  or  idea.  I  admit,  at  the  same  time,  that  there  have  been  some 
respectable  the(^logians  holding  a  doctrine  somewhat  like  that  of  Hamilton  and 
Mansel.  In  particulai".  Bishop  Peter  Browne  maiatains  that  the  true  and  real 
nature  of  God  and  his  attributes  is  "  utterly  incomprehensible  and  ineffable  ;" 
but  then  he  acknowledges  that  the  Fathers  did  not  lay  down  the  distinction  on 
which  he  proceeds,  nor  "  pursue  it  logically  through  all  the  particulars  of  our 
knowledge,  human  and  divine ;"  and  he  complains  in  his  work  on  The  Proce- 
dure^ Extent,  and  Limits  of  the  Iluman  Understanding,  3d  edit.,  that  so  far  from 
his  views  being  generally  received,  now,  twenty-five  years  after  their  publication, 
"  the  many  pious  and  learned  defenders  of  the  faith  either  declined  proceeding 
on  the  foundation  there  laid,  or  have  generally  given  only  some  general,  short, 
and  imperfect  hints  of  the  analogy." 

SECT.  VII.— (.SW>PZ^J/^xV7:iA'r.)-EXAMINATI0jSr  OP  MR.  J.  S.  MILL'S  META- 
PHYSICAL SYSTEM. 

By  far  the  ablest  opponent  of  intuitive  truth  in  this  country,  in  our  day,  is 
Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill.  It  will  be  necessary  to  examine  his  own  metaphysical 
system ;  I  speak  thus  because  he  has  in  fact  a  metaphysics  underlying  his  whole 
logical  disquisitions.  He  says,  indeed,  iu  the  introduction  to  his  Lmjic,  that 
"  with  the  original  data  or  ultimate  premises  of  our  knowledge,  with  their  uum« 


342  METAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

bfT  or  nature  tbo  mode  in  wbicli  tlicy  arc  obtained,  or  the  tests  by  ^hich 
they  may  be  distinguished,  logic  in  a  direct  way  has,  in  the  sense  in  which  I 
conceive  the  same,  nothing  to  do."  Yet  Mr.  Mill  is  ever  and  anon  diving  down 
into  these  very  topics,  and  uttering  very  decided  opinions  as  to  our  knowledge 
of  mind  and  body,  as  to  the  foundation  of  reasoning  and  demonstrative  evi- 
dence, and  as  to  our  belief  in  causation.  This  I  exceedingly  regret ;  the  more 
so  that  his  logic  in  tojiics  remote  from  first  principles  is  distinguished  for  mas- 
terly exposition,  for  great  clearness,  and  practical  utility.'  If  it  be  answered 
that  a  thorough  logic  cannot  be  constructed  v.'ithout  building  on  the  founda- 
tions which  metaphysics  supply,  then  I  have  to  regret  that  Mr.  Mill's  metaphy- 
sics should  be  so  defective.  His  philosophy  might  seem  to  be  that  of  Locke  ; 
but  in  fact  it  omits  many  truths  to  which  Locke  gave  prominence,  as,  for  exam- 
ple, the  high  function  of  intuition.  Mr.  Mill's  metaphysical  system  is  that  of 
the  age  and  circle  in  which  he  was  trained ;  it  is  derived  in  part  from  Dr. 
Brown,  and  his  own  father,  Mr.  James  Mill,  and  to  a  greater  extent  fi-om  M. 
Comte.     ^ 

The  only  satisfactory  metaphysical  admission  of  Mr.  Mill  is,  "  Whatever  is 
known  to  us  by  consciousness  is  known  beyond  the  possibility  of  question," 
(Logic^  Introd.)  What  does  this  admission  amount  to  ?  First,  as  to  self,  or 
mind,  he  says,  "  But  what  this  being  is,  although  it  is  myself,  I  have  no  linowl- 
edge,  other  than  the  series  of  its  states  of  consciousness."  As  to  body,  he  says 
the  reasonable  opinion  is  that  it  is  the  "  hidden  external  cause  to  which  we  refer 
our  sensations  "  (Lo(/ic,  i.  iii.  8).  Sensation  is  our  only  primary  mental  opera- 
tion in  regard  to  an  external  v>'orld ;  and  perception  is  discarded  "  as  an  obscure 
word  "  (compare  Dissertations,  Vol.  i.  p.  94).  "  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
for  believing  that  what  we  call  the  sensible  qualities  of  the  object  are  a  type  of 
anything  inherent  in  itself,  or  bear  any  afiinity  to  its  own  nature."  "  Why  should 
matter  resemble  our  sensations  ?"  {Logic,  i.  iii.  7.)  Speaking  of  bodies,  and  our 
feelings  or  states  of  consciousness,  he  says :  "  The  bodies,-  or  external  objects 
which  excite  certain  of  these  feelings,  together  with  the  powers  or  properties 
whereby  they  excite  them, — -these  being  included  rather  in  comjjliance  with  com- 
mon opinion,  and  because  their  existence  is  taken  for  granted  in  the  common 
language,  from  which  I  cannot  deviate,  than  because  the  recognition  of  such 
powers  or  properties  as  real  existence  appears  to  be  warranted  by  a  sound  phi- 
losophy." It  is  cmious  to  see  how  extremes  meet.  Mr.  Mill  seems  in  every  way 
the  opponent  of  the  Kantian  school.  Yet  he  quotes  with  approbation  and 
evident  delight  the  words  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  "All  that  we  know  is  therefore 
phenomenal,  phenomenal  of  the  unknown  "  (i.  iii.  7). 

I  have  to  ask  my  readers  to  compare  this  i^hilosophic  system  with  the  account 
I  have  submitted  in  this  treatise,  and  judge  for  themselves  in  the  light  of  con- 
sciousness. He  admits  that  whatever  is  kno\^'n  by  consciousness  is  beyond  pos- 
sibility of  question  ;  but  I  hold  that  by  consciousness  we  know  much  more  than 
he  admits.  He  allows  that  we  know  "  Feelings  " — the  favourite  but  most  inade- 
quate language  of  the  French  Sensationalists,  and  of  BroTvn.  I  maintain  that 
our  consciousness  is  of  Self  as  Feeling,  and  not  of  Feelings  separate  from  Self. 

I  Mr.  Kidd,  in  his  very  able  work  on  the  Primiiry  Principles  of  Reasoning,  Chap,  iii.,  has 
examined  Mr.  Mill's  Attributive  theory  of  reasoning,  and  has  shown  that  when  he  puts  the 
major  premiss  in  the  form  of  "Attribute  A  is  a  mark  of  Attribute  B,"  it  means  that  "  Ihe 
class  of  things  that  possess  A  also  possess  B,"  and  that  we  have  thus  the  dictum  which  he 
BO  much  disparages  brought  iu  surreptitiously. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  343 

K  lie  ask  me  to  define  Self,  wMcli  I  maintain  tliat  we  tlius  know,  I  afek  Liui  to 
define  Feeling,  which  he  acknowledges  that  we  thus  know.  It  will  then  be 
Been  that  neither  can  be  defined,  because  both  are  original  perceptions  of  con- 
sciousness. He  admits  as  indisputable  only  what  we  are  conscious  of  I  main- 
tain that  we  must  admit  all  we  intuitively  know,  and  that  we  know  body  imme- 
diately. Mr.  Mill,  following  Brown,  maintains  that  we  know  body  by  infer- 
ence, as  the  cause  of  what  we  feel.  Brown  can  get  the  inference  ;  for  he  holds 
resolutely  by  the  doctrine  that  we  intuitively  believe  that  eveiy  effect  has  a 
cause  ;  and  discovering  jiheuomena  in  us  which  have  no  cause  in  us,  he  seeks 
for  a  cause  without  us.  This  process  would,  I  think,  leave  the  external  world 
an  unknown  thing,  and  could  never  give  us  a  knowledge  of  extension  (which 
not  being  in  the  effect  we  could  not  place  in  the  cause) ;  still  we  might  thus 
argue  that  an  external  world  existed.  But  how  can  Mr.  Mill,  who  denies  intui- 
tive causation,  get  the  external  world  at  all  ?  Where,  indeed,  is  he  to  get  even 
his  causation  as  an  experiential  law  ?  For  in  a  mind  shut  up  darkly  from  all 
direct  knov,dedge  of  anything  beyond,  the  most  common  phenomena  must  be 
sensations  and  feelings  of  which  we  can  never  discover  a  cause,  or  know  that 
they  have  a  cause.  Kant  saved  himself  from  the  consequences  of  his  specula- 
tive system  by  calling  in  the  Practical  Eeason ;  and  Hamilton  accomphshed  the 
same  end  by  calling  in  Faith.  I  think  that  these  great  men  were  entitled  to 
appeal  to  our  moral  convictions  and  to  our  necessary  faiths.  These  I  hold  to 
be  beyond  dispute,  no  less  than  our  consciousness  or  our  feelings.  But  Mr.- 
Mill  makes  no  such  appeal  to  save  him  from  the  void ;  and  he  abstains  from 
expressing  any  opinion  as  to  the  great  fimdamental  religious  truths  which  men 
have  in  all  ages  intertvriued  with  their  ethical  principles,  and  from  which  they 
have  derived  their  brightest  hopes  and  deepest  assurances.  He  is  silent  on 
these  subjects,  as  if,  on  the  one  hand,  unwilling  to  deny  them,  and  as  if  he  felt, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  by  his  miserably  defective  philosophic  principles  he  had 
left  himself  no  ground  on  which  to  build  them. 

Mr.  MUl's  derivative  logic  is  admirable ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  find  what  the 
final  appeal  is  to  be.  "  There  is  no  appeal  from  the  human  faculties  generally ; 
but  there  is  an  appeal  from  one  faculty  to  another,  from  the  judging  faculty  to 
those  which  take  cognizance  of  fact,  the  faculties  of  sense  and  consciousness  " 
(ni.  xxi.  1).  This  would  seem  to  make  sense  and  consciousness  the  final  appeal. 
But  all  that  sense  gives,  according  to  him,  is  an  unknown  cause  of  feelings,  and 
all  that  consciousness  gives  is  a  series  of  feelings.  He  says,  veiy  properly,  tliat 
we  should  make  "  the  opinion  agree  with  the  fact ;"  but  he  seems  to  leave  us 
no  means  of  getting  at  any  other  facts  than  floating  feelings. 

I  have  already  noticed  his  defective  account  of  our  moral  perception  (see 
supra^  p.  339),  and  of  our  belief  in  causation  Q).  263),  and  I  may  yet  have  occa- 
sion to  refer  to  his  theory  of  mathematical  axioms  (/«/r«,  p.  362).  It  now  only 
remains  at  this  place  to  sliovi^  that  he  has  given  an  utterly  erroneous  account  of 
the  tests  or  criteria  of  primitive  or  fundamental  truth.  He  is  obliged,  as  for 
himself,  to  admit  some  sort  of  test.  We  must  admit,  he  says,  "  all  that  is  known 
by  consciousness  ;"  and  he  says  there  is  "  no  apj^eal  from  the  human  faculties 
generally."  I  do  regret  that  he  has  never  patiently  set  himself  to  inquire  what 
is  the  knowledge  given  by  "  consciousness,"  and  in  the  testimonies  of  the  "  facul- 
ties generally."  This  would  have  led  him  to  truths  which  he  ignores,  or  con- 
temptuously sets  aside.     He  examines  the  viev/s  of  the  defenders  of  necessary 


344  METAPHYSICS.  [part  in. 

triUli  on  tlic  supposition  tliat  the  test  of  sucli  truth  is  that  "  the  negation  of  it  is 
not  only  false  but  inconceivable  "  (Logic,  ii.  v.  G).  He  tl  en  uses  the  word  "  in- 
conceivable "  in  all  its  ambiguity  of  meaning.  By  "  conceivable  "  he  often 
means  that  which  we  can  apprehend,  or  of  which  we  may  have  an  idea,  in  the 
sense  of  an  image :  "  ^\nien  we  have  often  seen  or  thought  of  two  things 
together,  and  have  never  in  any  one  instance  either  seen  or  thought  of  them 
seiJarately,  there  is,  by  the  primary  law  of  association,  an  increasing  difficulty, 
which  may  in  the  end  become  insuperable,  of  conceiving  the  two  things  apart." 
He  then  proceeds  to  show  that  what  is  inconceivable  by  one  man  is  conceivable 
by  another ;  that  what  is  inconceivable  in  one  age  may  l)ecome  conceivable  the 
next.  "  There  was  a  time  when  men  of  the  most  cultivated  intellects,  and  the 
most  emancipated  from  the  dominion  of  early  prejudice,  would  nat  credit  the 
existence  of  antipodes  "  (ii.  v.  6).  I  acknowledge  that  the  tests  of  intuition 
have  often  been  loosely  stated,  and  that  they  have  also  been  illegitimately 
applied  ;  just  as  the  lav/s  of  derivative  logic  have  been.  But  they  have  seldom 
or  never  been  put  in  the  ambiguous  form  in  which  Mr.  Mill  understands  them  ; 
and  it  is  only  in  such  a  shape  that  they  could  ever  be  supposed  to  cover  such 
beliefs  as  the  rejection  of  the  rotundity  of  the  earth.  The  tests  of  intuition 
can  be  clearly  enunciated,  and  can  be  so  used  as  to  settle  for  us  what  is  intuitive 
truth.  It  is  not  the  power  of  conception,  in  the  sense  either  of  phantasm  or 
notion,  that  should  be  used  as  a  test,  but  it  is  self-evidence  with  necessity ;  the 
necessity  of  cognition,  if  the  intuition  be  a  cognition  ;  the  necessity  of  belief, 
if  it  be  a  belief;  the  necessity  of  judgment,  if  it  be  a  judgment.  There  w^as  a 
time  when  even  educated  men  felt  a  difficulty  in  conceiving  the  antipodes,  be- 
cause it  seemed  contrary,  not  to  intuition,  but  to  their  limited  experience  ;  but 
surely  no  one  knowing  anything  of  philosophy,  or  of  what  he  was  speaking, 
would  have  maintained,  at  any  time,  that  it  was  self-evident  that  the  earth  could 
net  be  round,  and  that  it  was  impossible,  in  any  circumstances,  to  believe  the 
opposite.  The  tests  of  intuition,  clearly  announced  and  rigidly  applied,  give 
theii'  sanction  only  to  such  truths  as  all  men  have  spontaneously  assented  to  in 
all  ages. 

ii,ECT.\lU.—(SITPFLFME]VTARr.)—TllE  NESCIENCE  THEORY. 
MR.  HERBERT  SPIf^fCER. 

In  the  reaction  against  the  high  ideal  or  a  priori  philosophy  of  the  past  age, 
we  run  a  considerable  risk  of  sinking  into  a  systematic  Nescience,  in  the  dark- 
ness of  which  there  may  be  c^uite  as  much  rash  speculation  as  in  the  empyrean 
of  transcendentalism.  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  who  did  so  much  to  overthrow  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Absolute,  has  unfortunately  prepared  the  way  for  this  other 
extreme.  Comparing  the  two  philosophies,  he  says :  "  In  one  respect  both 
coincide ;  for  both  agr/jc  that  the  knowledge  of  Nothing  is  the  principle  or  result 
of  aU  true  philosophy : — 

Scire  Nihil, —  studium,  quo  uos  hetamur  utrique. 
Bat  the  one  openly  maintaining  that  the  Nothing  must  yield  everything  is  a 
philosophic  omniscience;  whereas  the  other  holding  that  Nothing  can  yield 
nothing  is  a  philosophic  nescience.  In  other  words,  the  doctrine  of  the  TJn- 
cond  Ltioned  is  a  philosophy  confessing  relativtJ  ignorance,  but  professing  abso- 
lute knowledge ;   while  the  doctrine  of  the  Conditionec.  is  a  philosoiohy  pro- 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOL OGY.  34c 

fessing  relative  knowledge,  but  confessing  absolute  ignorance  "  (Discus.  App.  I, 
PMlos.  A).  Dr.  Mausel  has  applied  the  principles  of  Hamilton  to  the  over- 
throw of  tlie  Absolute  Theology  which,  he  shows,  has  involved  itself  in  inex- 
tricable inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  But  it  was  seen  by  all  raen  capable 
of  looking  at  consequences,  that  the  doctrine  might  be  turned  to  far  different 
puqjoses.  Mr,  Herbert  Spencer,  in  his  First  Prindjjles,  professes  to  build  on 
the  ground  furnished  to  him  by  Hamilton  and  Mansel,  and  has  reached  results 
which  they  would  disavow.  It  remains  for  the  school  of  Hamilton  to  show 
whether  this  can  be  done  with  logical  consistency.'  He  justly  observes  that 
"  it  is  rigorously  impossible  to  conceive  that  our  knowledge  is  a  knowledge  of 
appearances  only,  without  at  the  same  time  conceiving  a  reality  of  which  they 
axe  appearances  ;  for  appearances  without  reality  is  unthinkable  "  (p.  88).  But 
then  he  maintains  that  this  Reality  beyond  the  appearances  is  and  must  for  ever 
remain  unknown  to  man.  Nor  is  his  general  doctrine  much  improved  by  his 
allowing  that  "  besides  definite  consciousness  there  is  an  indefinite  conscious- 
ness which  cannot  be  formulated,"  for  this  inJefinite  thing  is  only  the  faith  and 
negative  judgments  of  Hamilton  in  a  still  vaguer  form.  He  reckons  it  the 
province  of  science  to  master  the  known  appearances  ;  and  he  allots  to  religion 
the  sphere  of  unknov/n  realities,  "  that  unascertained  something  which  phen- 
omena and  their  relations  imply  "  (p.  17).  This  is  the  "  fundamental  verity," 
"  common  to  all  religions,"  "  the  ultimate  religious  truth  of  the  highest  possible 
certainty  "  that  "  the  Power  which  the  universe  manifests  to  us  is  utterly  inscru- 
table." He  quotes  with  approbation  the  language  of  Hamilton  about  its  being 
the  highest  eftort  of  thought  to  erect  an  altar  "  to  the  imknown  and  unknow- 
able God :"  and  as  to  this  unknown  he  thinks  it  right  "  to  refrain  from  assign- 
ing to  it  any  attributes  whatever,  on  the  ground  that  such  attributes,  derived 
«i8  they  must  be  from  our  own  natures,  are  not  elevations  but  degradations  " 
(p.  109).  Looldng  to  the  interests  both  of  philosophy  and  religion,  it  is  of 
great  moment  to  lay  an  arrest  on  this  style  of  thought — quite  as  important  as 
it  was  to  stay  in  last  age  the  now  exploded  Philosophy  of  the  Absolute.  I 
meet  it  by  maintaining  as  the  proper  postulate,  sanctioned  by  consciousness, 
that  the  mind  begins  with  a  knowledge  of  things,  iDartial,  no  doulit,  but  still 
correct  so  far  as  it  goes.  From  this  primitive  knowledge  and  adhering  beliefs 
it  reaches  fiulher  know*ledge.  In  particular,  the  real  effects  in  natm-e  carry  us 
up  to  a  real  cause.  The  evidences  of  design  argue  an  adequate  cause  in  an 
intelligent  designer,  and  the  nature  of  the  moral  power  in  man  and  of  the 
moral  government  of  the  world  is  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  j^Ioral  Governor. 
"  The  invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen, 
being  understood  (vonv/xeva)  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power 
and  Godhead."  Should  it  come  to  be  thought  that  religion  has  only  the  sphere 
of  the  "  unknown  and  unknowable,"  I  am  sure  it  would  disappear  from  o\ir 
1  111  particular,  the}'  must  answer  the  following  (p.  110)  :  "After  it  has  been  sliown  that 
every  supposition  respecting  the  genesis  of  the  Universe  commits  us  to  alternative  impos- 
sibilities of  thought ;  after  it  has  been  shown  that  each  attempt  to  conceive  real  existence 
ends  in  an  intellectual  suicide  ;  after  it  has  been  shown  why,  by  the  very  constitution  of 
our  minds,  we  are  eternally  debarred  from  thinking  of  the  Absolute;  it  is  sliJl  asserted 
that  we  ought  to  think  of  the  Absolute  thus  and  tlius.  In  all  imaginable  ways  we  find 
thrust  upon  us  the  truth,  that  we  are  not  permitted  to  know — that  we  are  not  even  per- 
mitted to  conceive— that  Reality  which  is  behind  the  veil  of  Appearance;  and  yet  it  is  said 
to  be  our  duty  to  believe  (and  in  so  far  to  conceive)  that  this  Reality  exists  in  a  certain  de> 
Cned  manuer." 


3.t0  3IETAPHYSICS.  [part  hi. 

Nvorld  as  a  living  power.  TTlien  tlic  apostle  belicld  tlie  altar  Tvitli  tlie  inscrip- 
tion, "  To  the  Unknown  God,"  lie  hastened  to  proclaim  a  Known  God :  "  Whom 
therefore  yo  iguorantly  Vtorship,  him  declare  I  unto  you,  God  that  made  the 
world,"  etc. 

Mr.  Spencer,  in  his  Psi/cJiologi/,  insists  that  we  seek  an  Ultimate  Datum  or 
Postulate.  He  finds  such  a  Postulate  in  Belief.  He  does  not  very  distinctly  ex- 
plain what  is  involved  in  belief.  He  says  (p.  14),  that  "  belief  is  the  recogni- 
tion of  existence."  If  he  had  left  out  the  I'e  as  implying  something  prior 
brought  back,  and  said  cognition,  his  statement  would  have  been  correct.  Again, 
he  says,  "  Every  logical  act  of  the  intellect  is  a  predication,  is  an  assertion  that 
something  is,  and  this  is  what  we  call  Ijelief."  I  do  not  admit  that  all  cogni- 
tion is  predication  (see  supra,  p.  20S),  but  taking  his  explanation,  I  ask  my 
readers  to  consider  how  much  is  implied  in  this  predication  that  something 
is,  in  this  cognition  of  existence  ;  and  the  postulate,  if  it  is  not  unmeaning,  or 
if  its  meaning  is  not  suicidal,  must  postulate  all  that  is  in  it,  must  postulate 
existence  and  something  existing.  I  maintain,  further,  that  a  something  can 
be  known  as  existing  only  so  far  as  we  know  it  to  be  something,  that  is,  know 
something  of  it,  that  is,  know  some  quality  of  it.  Setting  out  with  something, 
I  hold  that  all  the  consequences  logically  di'awn  also  imply  existence,  and  some- 
thing existing  with  some  quality.  By  such  a  process  we  find  ourselves  reach- 
ing fiu-ther  knowledge  and  other  realities.  Mr.  SjDcncer,  quite  in  the  spirit  of 
the  German  speculatists,  will  admit  only  one  ultimate  postulate  :  what  he  calls 
belief.  On  the  ground  on  which  he  calls  in  the  one,  I  think,  he  is  bound  to 
admit  others — what  I  call  beliefs  and  judgments,  intellectual  and  moral.  By 
these,  and  by  ordinaiy  obseiTation,  we  rise  to  a  God  who  is  not  an  unknown  God. 

He  says  (p.  28) :  "  Not  only  is  the  invariable  existence  of  a  belief  our  sole 
warrant  for  eveiy  truth  of  immediate  consciousness,  and  for  every  primary  gen- 
eralization of  the  truths  of  immediate  consciousness — every  axiom ;  but  it  is 
our  sole  warrant  for  every  demonstration."  There  is  surely  some  confusion  of 
statement  here.  I  will  not  insist  on  the  circumstance  that  generalization  must 
imply  a  discursive  process.  I  remark  upon  the  principle  that  invariable  exist- 
ence is  the  warrant  of  the  truths  of  immediate  consciousness.  I  should  rather 
say,  that  the  belief  invariably  exists,  since  we  have  in  sense-perception  and 
self-consciousness  the  object  before  us,  and  we  ijcrceive  it.  According  to  Mr. 
SiJcncer  (p.  27),  "  In  the  i)roi5osition  '  I  am,'  no  one  who  utters  it  can  find  any 
proof  but  the  invariable  existence  of  the  belief  in  it."  I  should  rather  say, 
that  the  belief  is  so  invariable  since  all  men  have  invariably  the  object  self 
under  their  view.  Mr.  Spencer  lays  down  the  further  princiijle  (j).  26),  "  Thj 
inconceivability  of  its  negation  is  the  test  by  v/hich  we  ascertain  whether  a 
given  belief  invariably  exists  or  not ;"  and  then  in  the  application  he  uses 
the  word  "  conceiving "  (with  its  derivatives)  in  all  its  various  meanings, 
as  imaging,  apprehending  in  a  notion,  knowing,  believing,  judging  (see 
supra,  jj.  300).  Negation  may  no  doubt  be  used  as  a  test,  but  it  is  a  second- 
ary one,  thi-owing  us  back  on  the  primary  one  of  self-evidence  ;  and  the  nega- 
tion used  as  a  test  must  not  be  of  conception,  but  the  impossibility  of 

'  He  says  acutely,  in  criticising  Hume  (p.  49),  "  For  what  is  contained  in  the  concept,  an 
impression  ?  Transhite  tlie  word  into  thought,  and  there  are  manifestly  involved  a  tiling 
impressing  and  a  thing  impressed.  It  is  impossible  to  attach  any  idea  to  the  word  save  by 
the  help  of  these  two  other  ideas."  Now,  I  ask  him  to  translate  in  the  same  manner  his 
»wn  language,  and  it  will  imply  a  thing  cognizing,  and  an  existing  thii  -^  cognized. 


BOOK  I.]  ONTOLOGY.  347 

not  kaow-ing  ^lien  tlie  primitive  conviction  is  a  cognition,  of  not  believing  when 
it  is  a  Ijelief,  and  of  not  judging  in  a  particular  way  when  it  is  a  comparison, 
Sucli  tests  carry  us  on  from  primary  knowledge  to  further  knowledge,  embrac- 
ing the  existence  of  God. 

It  does  not  concern  us  in  this  treatise  to  examine  Mr.  Spencer's  ambitious 
attempt  to  explain  the  formation  of  the  present  state  of  the  cosmos,  by  means  of 
an  unknown  Infinite  necessitated  by  thought,  and  certain  forces.  It  could  easily 
be  shown  that  there  are  tremendous  chasms  in  the  process  which  he  has  unfolded. 
The  forces  which  he  is  obliged  to  postulate,  may  so  far  account  for  certaui  phys- 
ical phenomena,  such  as  the  size,  shape,  and  movements  of  the  planets.  But 
they  give  no  explanation  of  sensation,  or  emotion,  or  consciousness,  or  belief, 
or  intuition,  or  judgment,  or  the  sense  of  beauty,  or  reasoning,  or  desire,  or 
volition.  Great  as  are  the  author's  intellectual  powers,  he  has  attempted  a  task 
far  beyond  them,  I  believe  beyond  human  capacity,  certainly  far  beyond  it  at 
the  present  stage  of  science.  The  attempt  hj  this  giant  mind  to  reach  an  unap- 
proachable height,  by  heaping  Ossa  on  Pelion,  must  turn  out  a  lamentable  fail- 
ure. This  in  regard  to  his  theory  as  a  whole  ;  l^ut  his  bold  generalizations  are 
always  suggestive,  and  some  of  them  may  in  the  end  be  established  as  the  pro- 
foundest  laws  of  the  knowable  universe. 


us  METAPHYSICAL  PIUNCIPLES  [part  hi. 


BOOK  II. 

METAPHYSICAL  PKINCIPLES  INVOLVED   IN 

THE  VARIOUS   SCIENCES. 

CHAPTER  I. 

DISTINCTION'  BETWEEN  THE  DEMONSTRATIVE    OB  FORMAL 
AND    THE  MATERIAL    OR  INDUCTIVE  SCIENCES, 

The  distinction  between  them  is  so  obvious  that  it  has  been 
very  generally  acknowledged.  Every  one  sees  the  difference 
between  such  sciences  as  mathematics  and  the  Aristotelian  logic, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  zoology  and  chemistry  on  the  other.  Different 
accounts,  however,  have  been  given  of  the  grounds  of  the  distinction. 
Here,  as  in  so  many  of  the  other  topics  which  have  fallen  under 
our  notice,  there  has  been  much  confusion,  issuing  in  partial  truth 
and  positive  error.  Thus,  it  is  often  said  that  the  one  class  has  to 
do  exclusively  with  abstract  truth,  and  the  other  Avith  facts  which 
it  seeks  to  classify  and  arrange.  But  there  are  generalizations, 
and  therefore  abstractions,  in  all  science ;  and  if  there  be  any 
truth  in  the  account  given  in  this  treatise,  even  the  sciences 
which  proceed  on  intuition  have  to  commence  with  singulars 
which  they  generalize.  Again,  the  one  class  is  said  to  be  concerned 
with  a  priori  and  the  other  with  a  'posteriori  truth.  But  then 
truth  can  be  available  in  such  sciences  only  in  a  general  form,  and 
in  order  to  reach  the  general  truth  there  must  be  a  process  of 
induction.  Still  there  is  truth  in  both  these  statements.  All 
that  is  necessary  is  to  explicate  it  clearly,  and  make  it  stand  out 
separate  from  associated  errors. 

One  class  of  sciences  have  evidently  to  do  throughout  with  facts 
which  they  seek  to   correlate  by   observing  the  relations  among 


BOOK  II.]   INVOLVED  IN  THE  VARIOUS  SCIENCES.    349 

them,  say  of  form,  of  property,  or  of  cause  and  effect.  Wlien  these 
facts  are  external,  the  sciences  are  material,  such  as  pliysiology  and 
chemistiy  and  geology.  If  the  facts  be  internal,  then  we  have  the 
science  of  psycliology,  with  its  several  subdivisions.  In  these 
sciences  the  inquirer  always  starts  with  individual  facts,  but  he 
aims  to  discover  resemblances  or  otiier  relations,  to  abstract  tlie 
points  of  correlation,  and  at  last  to  arrive  at  general  laws  or  causes 
ever  rising  in  generality.  Tiie  other  class  of  sciences,  if  there  be 
any  accuracy  in  the  fundamental  principles  of  this  work,  must 
also  begin  with  singulars,  but  they  are  singulars  of  a  different 
order.  The  investigator  seizes  on  the  original  convictions  of  the 
mind  as  to  the  given  set  of  objects,  discovers  their  rule,  or  the  prin- 
ciple involved  in  thoni,  by  a  process  of  abstraction  and  general- 
ization, and  then  constructs  his  science  by  combining  them,  and 
carrying  them  out  deductively.  I  am  to  show,  in  the  chapters 
which  follow,  that  this  is  what  is  done  in  the  science  of  mathe- 
matics, and  to  some  extent  also  in  logic  and  ethics. 

The  distinction  between  the  two  is  thus  sufficiently  marked. 
Both  must  start  with  particulars,  but  the  one  starts  with  the 
individual  convictions,  which  are  native,  original,  and  necessary — 
or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  with  the  facts  and  truths  thus 
revealed, — and  formalizing  the  principles  involved  in  them,  it 
adopts  these  as  its  fundamental  maxims,  and  is  now  ready  to 
begin  its  proper  work  of  combining  its  truths  and  deducing 
consequences.  The  sciences  which  use  only  such  principles  are 
very  properly  called  apodictic,  or  demonstrative.  They  may  also 
be  called,  in  an  especial  sense,  abstract  sciences,  inasmuch  as 
they  deal  with  principles  in  an  abstract  form.  Logic  is  frequently 
called  formal,  because  it  proceeds  on  such  rules :  and  the  appella- 
tion might  be  applied  to  other  sciences,  such  as  ethics,  and  even 
mathematics.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  tliat,  after  all,  these 
pciences  do  start  from  particulars,  though  from  particulars  of  a 
special  kind  ;  and  if  there  be  any  dispute  as  to  their  fundamental 
principles,  tlie  appeal  must  be  to  these  facts,  that  is,  to  the  original 
convictions  of  the  mind.  These  singulars  have  all  a  conviction  of 
necessity  in  them,  and  on  the  condition  that  they  be  properly 
generalized,  the  necessity  goes  up  with  each  case  into  the  general 


350  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

axiom,  aud  all  the  tniilis  may  be  represented  as  Necessary  Truths. 
The  maxims  -with  which  these  sciences  start  are  all  generalizations 
of  our  primitive  cognitions,  beliefs,  or  judgments,  and  these,  with 
the  furthest  deductions  reached,  have  all  a  reference  to  objects,  and 
these  the  particular  kind  of  objects  contemplated  in  the  original 
conviction.  The  propositions  of  geometry  have  a  reference  to 
space.  The  maxims  of  ethics  have  a  meaning  as  applied  to  volun- 
tary actions.  Logical  formula)  have  a  respect  to  the  notions  of 
the  mind,  and  the  objects  apprehended  in  these  notions.  We  may 
at  any  time  apply  the  abstract  deductions  of  any  of  those  sciences 
to  cases  which  fulfil  the  conditions.  They  are  all  true,  necessarily 
true,  of  their  corresponding  objects.  Tlius  all  the  conclusions  of 
mathematics  in  regard  to  the  ellipse  must  hold  good  of  the  planets, 
so  far  as  they  move  in  an  elliptic  orbit.  That  sin  is  of  evil  desert 
and  deserves  punishment,  applies  to  deceit  and  every  other  crime. 
The  special  rules  of  the  syllogism  must  hold  good  of  our  reasoning 
about  every  sort  of  things.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that 
most  of  the  axioms  of  the  sciences  are  generalizations,  not  so  much 
of  our  primitive  cognitions  or  beliefs,  as  of  our  primitive  judgments, 
and  these,  while  they  have  a  reference  to  objects,  may  have  a 
reference  to  such  merely  potentially.  There  may  be  no  such  thing 
as  a  perfectly  elliptic  curve  in  the  planetary  movements ;  still,  even 
in  such  cases,  the  abstract  truth  has  a  respect  to  a  possible  ellipse 
mathematically  correct.' 

And  here  the  question  is  started.  How  can  demonstration  be 
carried  so  far  in  certain  departments,  while  in  others  it  can  proceed 
only  a  very  little  way?  To  this  it  must  be  answered,  first,  in  a 
general  way,  that  demonstration,  as  proceeding  on  intuition,  is 
possible  only  in  those  departments  in  which  we  have  intuition, 
and  in  them  only  so  far  as  the  special  intuition  will  carry  us.  In 
mathematics  we  have  tlie  necessary  relations  of  space,  time,  number, 
and  quantity  to  proceed  on.  The  simplicity  of  the  objects  allows 
of  great  accuracy  of  expression,  whicli  again  admits,  and  all  but 
necessitates,  great  clearness  of  notion  and  comprehension,  and  thus 
error  is  rendered  all  but  impossible,  except  from  the  grossest 
carelessness.     An   encouragement  is  given   to  the  prosecution  of 

I  The  general  doctrine  on  this  subject  is  explained,  supra,  pp.  301-303. 


BOOK  II.]   INVOLVED  IN  THE  VARIOUS  SCIENCES.    351 

mathematical  deduction,  by  the  circumstance  that  the  truths 
reached  admit  of  an  application  to  so  many  departments  of  nature, 
which  in  respect  of  form,  time,  and  quantity  are  constructed  on 
rigidly  geometrical  principles.  In  formal  logic,  too,  and  in  ethics, 
the  laws  of  thought  and  of  our  moral  convictions  being  detected 
and  rigidly  expressed,  may  be  carried  out  to  a  considerable  length 
by  rigid  deduction.  In  mechanics  and  dynamics  the  intuition  of 
mind  regarding  force  may  admit  of  a  limited  union  of  demonstra- 
tion with  experiment.  But  in  cases  in  which  the  intuition  is  of 
a  very  bare  character,  the  number  of  relations  which  can  be 
discovered  is  necessarily  very  coniined.  Thus  the  relation  of 
identit}^  can  afford  little  matter  for  demonstration.  Again,  when 
the  intuition  mixes  itself  closely  with  other  mental  acts,  it  is 
difficult  to  reach  its  precise  rule,  or  get  a  rule  sufficiently  clear 
and  definite  for  the  purpose  of  demonstration.  Thus,  our  intuition 
as  to  cause,  the  agents  being  so  often  dual  or  plural,  does  not  admit 
of  so  satisfactory  deduction  as  our  mathematical  intuitions.  Yet 
further,  demonstration,  however  far  it  might  be  carried  in  au 
abstract  form,  admits  of  few  applications  to  nature  when  the 
circumstances  become  very  complica.ted.  Mathematics  can  deter- 
mine very  definitely  what  will  be  the  path  of  a  body  when  it  is 
attracted  by  only  one  other,  but  it  can  settle  the  "  problem  of  three 
bodies"  only  approximately.  Formal  Logic  is  greatly  hampered  by 
the  complexity  of  thought  and  the  variety  of  the  objects  of  thought, 
and  demonstrative  ethics  become  valueless  in  the  complicated 
affairs  of  human  life.  By  far  the  greater  numher  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature  within  and  without  us,  are  so  involved  and  intricate, 
that  the  abstract  truths  of  intuition  and  demonstration  admit  of 
no  application  to  them. 

In  the  other  class  of  sciences  the  inquirer  begins  with  facts, 
these  not  being  the  necessary  convictions  of  the  mind.  He  has 
first  und  mainly  to  observe  them  carefully,  and,  if  need  be,  to  work 
experiments  so  as  to  elicit  them  fully,  and  discover  the  special 
action  of  each  agent  working  in  the  complex  operation  ;  and  he 
aims  by  the  "  necessary  rejections  and  exclusions,"  and  by  co- 
ordination, to  reach  a  general  law  or  a  general  cause.  Tliis  law, 
however,  has  in  it  no  necessity,  and   no    absolute   universality;  o'- 


352  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [paet  hi. 

universality  beyond  the  IcnoAvablc  Cosmos.  Having  reached  the 
law,  Iho  science  is  satisfied  in  regard  to  that  department  of  facts. 
At  the  same  time,  it  may  employ  tlie  law  as  a  means  to  ulterior 
ends  ;  say,  by  deduction  to  ascertain,  unknown  facts,  or  to  reach 
some  farther  law.  These  deduced  particulars  or  laws,  can  of 
course  have  only  the  certainty  of  the  law  from  which  they  are 
drawn,  and  tiiis  only  on  the  condition  that  the  derivation  is  pro- 
perly made.  The  truths  in  these  departments  of  knowledge  are 
all  Experiential  or  Contingent. 

It  should  1)0  noticed  tliat  some  sciences  arc  of  a  mixed  character, 
partaking  of  the  nature  of  both  classes.  Of  this  description  are 
mechanics,  astronomy,  and  optics,  in  each  of  which  there  is  a 
union  of  the  generalization  of  outward  facts  with  the  generaliza- 
tion of  the  intuitive  convictions  of  the  mind  regarding  space, 
number,  and  force.  In  ethics,  too,  ^bere  is  an  o])servation  of  the 
cliaracters  and  circumstances  of  men,  combined  with  original  moral 
principle.  Logic,  taken  in  a  large  sense,  may  be  considered  as  not 
only  the  science  of  the  generalized  operations  of  thought,  but  of 
the  laws  of  tliought  as  a]i{)lied,  say,  to  necessary  truth  in  demon- 
stration, and  to  contingent  truth  in  induction. 

Nor  should  it  be  omitted  that  in  most  sciences  there  are  meta- 
physical principles  involved,  though  these  are  seldom  noticed  by 
physical  inquirers.  In  the  chapters  wliich  immediately  follow,  I 
am  to  refer  first  to  the  sciences  in  which  intuition  and  demonstra- 
tion are  the  all-important  instruments,  and  then  to  those  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  in  which  intuition  enters,  often  tacit  and 
unseen,  m3rely  as  one  element. 


BOOK  II.]   INVOLVED  IN  THE  MENTAL  SCIENCES.    353 


CHAPTER    II. 
THE    MENTAL    SCIENCES. 

SECT.    I.— CLASSIFICATION    OF    THE    MENTAL    SCIENCES. 

Already  five  mental  sciences  have  emerged,  and  these  will  come 
each  to  be  subdivided  into  special  departments  as  the  study  makes 
progress. 

There  is  Psychology,  which  inquires  into  the  operations  of  the 
mind  of  man,  with  the  view  of  discovering  its  laws  and  its  facul- 
ties. The  founder  of  this  science  is  undoubtedly  Aristotle  in 
ancient  times.  Locke  may  be  described  as  its  second  founder  in 
modern  times.  It  is  a  science  throughout  of  facts  and  the  co- 
ordination of  facts.  As  a  whole,  it  has  made  a  gradual  progress 
since  its  origin  in  Greece,  and  its  second  rise  in  the  seventeenth 
century. 

There  is  Logic.  There  were  helps  and  preparations  towards  its 
construction  in  the  discussions  of  earlier  speculators,  but  Aristotle 
may  be  regarded  as  tlie  founder  of  this  science  also.  In  modern 
times  it  has  had  a  special  province  allotted  to  it  by  Kant,  who 
defined  it  as  the  science  of  the  laws  of  the  understanding  and  of 
the  reason.  Those  who  do  not  acknowledge  the  distinction,  as 
drawn  by  Kant,  between  the  understanding  and  the  reason,  but 
who  adopt  Kant's  general  view  of  Logic,  describe  it  as  the  Science 
of  the  Laws  of  Thought.  It  should  seek  first  to  seize  the  laws  of 
thought  as  in  the  mind  of  man,  but  its  main  office  is  to  analyse  and 
formalize  and  apply  them. 

There  is  the  science  of  Etliics.     The  founder  of  it  is  undoubtedly 

Socrates.     It  is  the  science  of  the  laws  of  the  Morally  Good.     It 

should  endeavour  to  seize  the  laws  of  man's  moral  nature,  espe- 
23 


354  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi 

cially  of  the  conscience,  and  tlicnce  proceed,  as  its  more  particular 
work,  to  analyse  tlicni  into  forms  or  rules,  and  apply  them  to  the 
peculiarities  of  human  character  and  the  specialties  of  human  life. 

There  should  be  a  science  whose  field  is  the  laws  of  the  feelings. 
Already  have  we  a  science  for  an  important  part  of  this  general 
subject,  that  of  Esthetics,  which  would  determine  the  laws  of  the 
beautiful.  But  we  should  have  a  science  seeking  to  discover  the 
laws  of  the  feelings  generally,  and  to  trace  them  in  their  influence, 
as  directed  to  various  classes  of  objects  within  and  without  us. 
Plato  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  this  science,  from 
his  frequent  and  often  profound  inquiries  into  the  nature  of  the  to 
KaXov,  or  "  the  fair."  I  am  inclined  to  call  this  scarcely  formed 
science  Kalology,  or  Kallisophy.' 

There  is  the  science  of  Metaphysics.  In  some  of  its  inquiries  it 
appeared  earlier  than  any  of  the  others,  going  back  to  the  age  of 
the  Eleatics.  Yet  it  will  be  one  of  the  latest  to  come  to  any  degree 
of  perfection,  owing  to  the  subtle  and  deeply  seated  nature  of  the 
objects  at  which  it  looks.  It  has  generally  had  far  too  wide  and 
ambitious  a  province  allotted  to  it.  I  have  sought  in  this  treatise 
to  confine  it  to  a  special  field,  and  defined  it  as  the  science  of  the 
intuitive  convictions  of  the  mind,  and  made  the  science  of  know- 
ing and  the  science  of  being  the  two  compartments  of  it.  Its 
of&ce  is  by  induction  to  determine  what  are  the  laws  of  the  intui- 
tions, and  to  reduce  them  to  general  expressions.  It  cannot  attain 
anything  like  a  scientific  form,  till  psychology  has  made  some  prog- 
ress, and  taught  us  to  distinguish  between  intuition  and  associated 
and  allied  states  of  mind. 


SECT.   II.— LOGIC, 

I  am  disposed  to  define  Logic  as  the  Science  of  the  Laws  of 
Discursive  Thought.  It  presupposes  that  certain  materials  are 
supplied  to  the  mind,  say,  by  sense  and  self-consciousness,  and  by 
the  reproductive  powers  bringing  them  before  the  mind  even  when 

'  Having  made  this  statement  in  the  first  edition,  I  am  gratified  to  find  KaXoXoyia  em- 
ployed in  a  work  on  Philosophy  in  modern  Greek  :  GE0PIITIKH2  KAI  HPAKTIKHS 
4'IA020<i'IA2   2T0IXEIA    (KEPKTPA,  1862.) 


BOOK  II.]     INVOLVED  IN  THE  MENTAL  SCIENCES.        355 

the  objects  are  not  present.  Thought  works  on  these  materials  dis- 
cursively, that  is,  from  something  given  it  draws  or  derives  something 
else.  In  doing  so  it  follows  certain  laws.  It  is  the  office  of  Logic 
to  seize  these  laws,  and  to  derive  rules  from  them  which  may  guide 
and  guard  thought  in  its  various  applications. 

Logic  is  described  by  those  who  take  much  the  same  view  of  it 
as  I  do,  as  an  a  priori  science.  But  this  account  cannot  be  allowed 
to  pass  without  an  explanation.  It  may  be  called  an  a  priori 
science,  inasmuch  as  it  deals  with  laws  which  are  in  the  mental 
constitution  prior  to  all  experience.  But  in  another  sense  it  is  not 
an  a  priori  science,  nor  can  there  be  an  a  priori  science,  for  there 
is  no  department  in  wliich  general  laws  can  be  discovered  inde- 
pendent of  experience.  While  the  laws  of  thought  are  a  priori 
we  cannot  discover  them  a  priori.  It  is  quite  conceivable,  indeed, 
that  man  might  have  been  so  framed  that  he  could  discover  the 
la^s  of  thought  by  immediate  consciousness  or  intuition.  His 
mental  constitution  might  have  been  such  as  to  enable  him  at  once 
to  enunciate  the  laws  of  contradiction  and  excluded  middle,  and 
the  Dictian  de  omni  et  radio.  But  it  is  very  evident  that  man  has 
not  been  so  constituted  by  his  Maker.  The  only  method  avail- 
able to  us  of  discovering  the  laws  of  thought,  is  to  observe  their 
spontaneous  operations,  separate  by  analysis  the  invariable  from  the 
accidental,  and  by  a  process  of  induction  collect  the  law  from  its 
individual  acts. 

Logic  thus  throws  us  back  on  Psychology,  and  on  an  inductive 
psychology,  not  indeed  to  justify  the  laws,  but  to  discover  them. 
ISTot  that  psychology  and  logic  are  identical,  or  that  they  should  be 
mixed  up  with  one  another.  Psychology,  in  treating  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  mind  generally,  will  fall  in  with  thought,  and  will  seek 
by  classification  to  discover  the  faculties  of  thought,  and  these  are 
specially  the  comparative  or  correlative  powers.  It  will  seek  even 
to  discover  in  a  general  way  the  laws  involved  in  thought.  But 
when  it  has  gone  so  far  in  this  direction,  it  will  stop.  It  does  not 
make  a  very  minute  analysis  of  these  laws,  it  does  not  seek  to  pre- 
sent them  in  all  possible  forms,  it  does  not  make  an  application  of 
them  to  discursive  investigation.  It  leaves  this  to  logic  as  its 
Bpecial  province.     Nor  should  logic  enter  generally  into  the  nature 


356  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

of  the  liumau  mind,  its  faculties  and  laws.  It  should  confine  itself 
to  one  single  department.  Nor  does  it  in  tliis  department  seek  to 
investigate  faculties  and  their  mode  of  operation.  It  looks  at  the 
human  mind  merely  with  the  view  of  discovering  the  laws  involved 
in  the  discursive  operations,  and  when  it  has  detected  them,  it  puts 
them  in  convenient  formula),  and  applies  tiicm  to  all  various  exercises 
of  thought  as  employed  about  objects.  If  psychology  were  in  a 
more  perfect  state,  it  would  save  logic  from  nearly  all  psychological 
inquiry,  by  handing  over  to  it  certain  truths  which  it  might  at  once 
adopt,  and  use  for  its  own  special  purposes. 

Logic  lias  points  of  relation  to  metaphysics.  Certain  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  logic  are  intuitive.  These  must  fall 
imdcr  the  province  of  metaphysics,  which  should  generalize  them 
out  of  tlicJr  individaal  operations,  and  express  them,  and  show  what 
is  tlieir  pi-ccisc  nature  in  the  human  constitution,  and  their  objec- 
tive validity,  and  t!ie  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  the  other 
intuitive  principles,  and  to  the  experiential  exercises  of  the  mind. 
But  having  finished  this  work,  it  hands  over  these  principles  to 
logic,  to  make  a  more  specific  use  of  tliem  by  presenting  them  in 
divers  formula),  and  following  them  out  in  discursive  investigation. 
On  tlie  other  hand,  logic  docs  not  require  to  consider  the  manner 
in  which  the  principles  are  obtained.  If  they  are  admitted,  it  does 
not  care  whether  they  are  intuitive  or  experiential ;  it  does  not 
trouble  itself  to  inquire  about  their  origin,  foundation,  or  guarantee, 
or  their  relation  to  other  exercises  of  the  mind.  But  while  logic 
is  not  to  be  confounded  witli  psychology  or  with  metaphysics,  yet  in 
all  disputes  as  to  its  fundamental  principles,  it  is  necessarily  thrown 
back  on  both.  In  particular,  tlie  disputes  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
abstract'  and  general  notion,  and  all  the  discussions  in  the  present 
day  as  to  whether  tlio  predicate  ouglit  or  ought  not  to  be  quanfificd, 
as  to  whether  tlie  dictum  is  or  is  not  the  ultimate  expression  of  the 
imiversal  law  of  reasoning,  are  to  be  settled  by  psychological  and 
metaphysical  investigation. 

From  a  very  old  date.  Logic  is  represented  as  having  to  do  with 
tlie   Notion,  with  Judgment,  and  Reasoning.     Its  special  province 

*  There  still  remains  much  confusion  in  Logic  from  not  unfolding  precisely  the  nature 
of  the  Notion,  and  from  not  separating  the  Abstract  from  the  General  Notion.  See 
Appendix  to  this  volume  "  Ou  the  Analytic  of  Logical  Forms." 


BOOK  II.]     INVOLVED  IN  THE  MENTAL  SCIENCES.        357 

is  to  discover  the  laws  of  tliouglit  iuvolved  in  each  of  tnete,  to 
formalize  and  apply  them.  The  investigations  pursued  in  this 
treatise  have  brought  out  a  number  of  truths  capable  of  furnishing 
principles  in  each  of  these  departments.  But  it  would  carry  us 
into  another  science  altogether,  were  I  to  proceed  in  this  treatise 
to  specify  the  logical  applications  of  metaphysical  truth. 

In  addition  to  the  Universal  Logic  discovering  and  applying  the 
laws  of  thought,  whatever  be  the  objects,  there  may  also  be  a 
Particular  Logic  unfolding  the  laws  of  discursive  thought  as 
directed  to  particular  classes  of  objects.  Under  this  head  sucli 
subjects  as  demonstrative  and  probable  evidence,  induction,  and 
analogy  should  be  discussed.  In  this  eminently  practical  depart- 
ment, metaphysics  should  be  able  to  show,  in  every  brancli  of 
inquiry,  what  principles  are  intuitive, —  by  the  tests  which  I  have 
so  often  specified, — and,  by  consequence,  what  must  be  made  to  rest 
on  experience.^ 

SECT.   III.— ETHICS. 

Ethics  is  in  every  respect  an  analogous  science  to  Logic.  The 
difference  lies  in  the  difference  of  the  matters  with  which  they 
deal,  the  one  aiming  to  find  the  laws  of  discursive  truth,  the  other 
the  nature  of  moral  good  ;  the  one  seeking  to  attain  its  end  by 
generalizing  the  operations  of  thought,  the  other  by  generalizing 
the  exercises  of  the  motive  and  moral  powers  of  man.  Ethics,  like 
Logics,  is  in  a  sense  an  a  priori  science  ;   it  finds  and  it  employs 

^  I  am  aware  that  there  are  some  who  deny  that  there  can  be  such  a  department  of 
logic.  Logic,  they  say,  has  to  do  with  thought,  and  not  with  objects,  and  can  talce  no 
cognizance  of  the  difference  of  objects.  I  admit  that  logic  has  to  do  with  the  laws  of 
thought,  and  not  with  the  nature  of  objects.  But  then  thought  has  always  a  reference, 
avowed  or  tacit,  to  objects.  There  is  a  subtle  error  lying  here  in  the  account  given  of 
universal  logic  by  Kant,  who  says  that  it  makes  abstraction  of  all  content  of  the  cogni- 
tion (Kritil:,  Trans.  Logik).  It  is  all  true  that  logic  looks  to  the  thought,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  thought  has  a  content.  Ttie  difference  between  universal  and  particular  logic 
lies  in  this,  that  the  former  looks  to  thought,  whatever  be  the  content,  and  the  latter  to 
thought,  directed  to  special  classes  of  content.  This  leads  me  to  point  out  another  error 
which  has  crept  into  the  Kantian  Logic  from  the  Kantian  Metaphysics.  It  is,  that  the 
laws  of  thought  are  mere  forms  in  the  mind.  True,  they  arc  rules  in  the  mind,  but  they 
are  rules  which  refer  to  objects,  and  they  do  not  give  the  objects  anything  that  is  not  in 
them.  True,  all  discursive  thought  implies  materials  supplied  to  it.  If  fable  or  error  be 
given  it,  what  it  reaches  may  also  be  fabulous  or  erroneous.  But  on  the  other  hand,  if  it 
'start  with  fact  or  with  truth,  and  proceed  according  to  logical  laws,  all  that  it  reaches  will 
also  be  real  and  true. 


358  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES       [part  hi. 

principles  wliieli  are  valid,  iudepeudeut  of  our  experience.  In 
another  sense,  it  is  a  posteriori,  inasmuch  as  these  principles  and 
their  laws  can  be  discovered  by  us  only  through  observation  of 
their  individual  manifestations ;  and  thus  far  it  is  dependent 
on  an  inductive  psychology.  We  must  begin  with  inquiring. 
Quid  est  ?  and  then  we  find  that  the  thing  reached  relates  to  the 
Quid  oportet?  It  is  the  special  office  of  ethics  to  ascertain  what 
is  involved  in  the  oportet,  and  apply  its  formula3  to  the  conduct 
of  responsible  beings. 

It  has  to  look  to  three  special  classes  of  objects,  in  order  to  dis- 
cover the  laws  which  it  employs.  It  has  to  look  to  the  motives 
addressed  to  the  mitul,  with  tlie  view  of  gaining  its  consent,  and, 
it  may  bo,  of  inducing  it  to  form  a  determination  to  act.  It  has  to 
look  to  the  will  or  the  mind  deciding  upon  the  motives  addressed 
to  it.  Further,  and  specially,  it  has  to  look  to  the  conscience 
intimating  to  the  will  wlieu  it  should  yield  to  motives  addressed 
to  it,  and  when  it  should  resist.  The  mind  discerns  moral  good 
as  a  quality  of  certain  voluntary  acts,  and  it  pronounces  a  number 
of  decisions  in  regard  to  moral  good  in  itself,  and  these  can  be 
abstracted  into  definitions,  or  generalized  into  laws,  which  are  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  science.  The  mind,  too,  has  a  set 
of  primitive  judgments,  which  it  forms  in  regard  to  the  connexion 
of  moral  good  and  Happiness,  and  tliese  can  also  be  made  to  assume 
a  general  form.  The  general  principles  tlius  obtained  can  be  put, 
by  analysis,  into  an  immense  number  of  specific  forms,  to  suit 
special  purposes,  scientific  or  practical.  They  can  be  put  in  the 
shape  of  ethical  principles,  to  meet  prevalent  errors,  such  as  those 
of  the  utilitarian  or  of  the  sensationalist.  Or  again,  they  can  take 
tlie  form  of  general  or  specific  precepts,  such  as,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  with  all  thy  heart ;"  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet  anything  that 
is  thy  neighbour's."  In  regard  to  the  will,  our  intuitive  convictions 
declare  that  in  all  moral  action  the  deed  must  be  voluntary,  and 
the  will  must  be  free. 

But  a  science  of  ethics  fitted  to  serve  any  useful  purpose 
cannot  be  constructed  from  the  mere  native  convictions  of  the 
mind.  We  do  obtain  a  few  most  important  general  principles 
from  this  source  exclusively,  and  these  underlie  the  whole  science, 


BOOK  II.]   INVOLVED  IN  TEE  MENTAL  SCIENCES.    359 

and  bear  up  every  part  of  it.  But  iu  order  to  serve  tlie  ends 
intended  by  it,  ethics  must  settle  what  are  the  duties  of  different 
classes  of  persons,  according  to  the  relation  in  which  they  stand 
to  each  other,  such  as  rulers  and  subjects,  parents  and  children, 
masters  and  servants  ;  and  what  the  path  which  individuals  should 
follow  in  certain  circumstances, — it  may  be,  very  difficult  and  per- 
plexing. In  consequence  of  the  affairs  of  human  life  being  very 
complicated,  demonstration  can  be  carried  but  a  very  little  way  in 
ethics.  In  order  to  be  able  to  enunciate  general  principles  for 
our  guidance,  or  to  promulgate  useful  precepts,  the  ethical  inquirer 
must  condescend  to  come  down  from  his  a  priori  heights  to  the 
level  in  which  mankind  live  and  walk  and  work.  Even  in  the 
most  practical  departments  of  ethical  science,  the  grand  fundamental 
laws  of  our  moral  constitution  must  ever  be  the  guiding  principles, 
but  we  have  to  consider  their  application  to  an  almost  infinite  variety 
of  earthly  positions  and  human  character. 

In  these  investigations,  metaphysical  science,  were  it  diligently 
to  cultivate  its  own  field,  and  confine  itself  to  it,  should  be  able 
greatly  to  serve  the  science  of  ethics.  It  should  be  in  a  position 
to  show  what  is  the  nature  of  our  intuitions,  how  these  intuitions 
differ  from  one  another,  wherein  our  intellectual  differ  from  our 
moral  intuitions,  and  wliat  sort  of  objective  reality  each  class  of  our 
intuitions  guarantees,  and  it  should  show  how  we  may  draw  thfe 
general  law  out  of  the  individual  convictions.  But  metaphysics 
and  ethics  are  not,  after  all,  the  same  science,  nor  should  ethics  be 
regarded  as  a  branch  of  metaphysics,  nor  should  metaphysics  pro- 
fess to  be  able  to  construct  an  ethical  science.  Some  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  ethics  are  certainly  metaphysical,  but  ethics 
consist  mainly  in  the  construction  of  a  science  on  these  principles 
as  a  basis. 

Of  all  the  sciences,  ethics  is  that  which  comes  into  closest  rela- 
tionship with  Christianity  and  the  Word  oi  God.  The  reason  is 
obvious.  It  deals  with  the  law  and  tlie  very  character  of  God ;  it 
deals  with  man  as  under  law,  and  with  man  as  having  broken  the 
law.  It  thus  prepares  us,  if  it  faithfully  fulfil  its  functions,  to  be- 
lieve in  a  religion  whicli  shows  us  how  the  sinner  can  be  reconciled 
to  God.     When  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  embraced. 


360  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

a  new  and  most  important  element  is  introduced  into  ethics.  It 
should  no  longer  be  a  science  constructed,  on  the  one  hand,  for 
pure  beings,  nor,  on  the  other,  for  persons  who  must  ever  be  kept 
at  a  distance  from  God.  This  new  reconciling  and  gracious  element 
turns  Pagan  into  Christian  ethics  ;  it  turns  a  cold  and  legal,  into  a 
warm  and  evangelical  obedience. 


BOOK  II.]  IN  VOL  VED  IN  31  A  THE3IA  TIGS.  361 


CHAPTER    FIT. 

MATHEMATICS. 

It  has  been  shown  by  Kant  that  the  axioms  of  geometry  are 
synthetic  and  not  analytic  judgments.^  Thus,  in  the  axiom,  "  Two 
straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space,"  the  predication  that  "they 
cannot  enclose  a  space,"  is  not  contained  in  the  bare  notion  of 
"two  straight  lines."  Starting  with  axioms  which  involve  more 
than  analytic  judgments,  we  are  reaching  throughout  the  demon- 
stration more  than  identical  truth.  The  propositions  in  the  Books 
of  Euclid  are  all  evolved  out  of  the  definitions  and  axioms,  but  are 
not  identical  with  them,  or  with  one  another. 

The  question  is  keenly  agitated  as  to  axioms,  whether  they  are 
or  are  not  the  result  of  the  generalizations  of  experience.  It  will 
be  found  here,  as  in  so  many  other  questions  which  have  passed 
under  our  notice,  that  there  is  truth  on  both  sides,  error  on  both 
sides,  and  confusion  in  thj  whole  controversy,  which  is  to  be  cleared 
up  by  an  exact  expression  of  the  mental  operation  involved  in  pass- 
ing the  judgment.      A  mathematic  axiom,  being  a  general  maxim, 

J  Kritik,  p.  14n.  Dr.  Mansel  {Proleg.  Log.  2d  ed.  p.  103),  maintains  that  ^uch  axioms  as 
that  "  Things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  are  equal  to  each  other"  are  analytic.  Hut  does 
not  this  confound  equality  with  identity?  D.  Stewart  remarks  {Ele.m.  Vol.  ii.  chap,  ii.) 
that  most  of  the  writers  who  have  maintained  that  all  mathematical  evidence  resolves  ulti- 
mately into  the  perception  of  identity  "  have  imposed  on  themselves  by  using  the  words 
identity  and  equality  as  literally  synonymous  and  convertible  terms.  This  does  not  seem 
to  be  at  all  consistent,  either  in  point  of  expression  or  fact,  with  sound  logic."  Certain 
modern  logicians  have  fallen  into  a  still  greater  confusion,  when  they  make  the  relation 
between  subject  and  predicate  merely  one  of  identity  or  of  equality.  The  proposition^ 
*'Man  is  mortal,"  is  not  interpreted  fully  when  it  is  said  "  Man  is  identical  with  some 
mortal,"  or  that,  "  All  men  =  some  mortals."  By  all  means  let  logicians  use  symbols,  but 
let  them  devise  symbols  of  their  own,  and  not  turn  to  a  new  use  the  symbols  of  mathe- 
matics, which  have  a  meaning,  and  a  well-defined  one,  simply  as  applied  to  quantity 
and  should  not  be  made  to  signify  the  relations  of  extension  and  comprehension  in  logical 
propositions. 


302  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  in. 

is  the  result  of  a  process  of  generalization.  If  we  look  to  what  has 
passed  Avithin  our  minds,  we  shall  lind  that  it  has  been  by  tlie  con- 
templation of  individual  instances  that  the  mind  has  attained  to  the 
comprehension  and  the  conviction  of  the  general  proposition,  that 
"  If  equals  be  added  to  equals,  the  sums  are  equal."  The  boy 
understands  this  best  when  he  is  in  circumstances  to  use  his 
marbles,  or  his  apples.  The  youth  who  is  finding  his  way  through 
Euclid  does  not  feel  that  the  axiom  adds  in  the  least  to  the 
cogency  of  the  reasoning ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  rather  the  case 
before  him  that  enables  him  to  comprehend  the  axiom  and  to 
acknowledge  its  truth. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  tlie  axiom  is  a  mere  generalization 
of  an  outvv'ard  or  a  gathered  experience.  It  is  not  by  trying  two 
straight  rods,  ten,  twenty,  or  a  thousand  times,  that  we  arrive  at 
the  general  proposition  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space,  and  thence  conclude  as  to  two  given  lines  presented  to  us 
that  it  is  impossible  they  should  enclose  a  space.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  by  placing  two  rods  parallel  to  each  other,  and  length- 
ening them  more  and  more,  and  then  measuring  their  distance  to 
see  if  they  are  approaching,  that  we  reach  the  axiom  that  two 
parallel  lines  will  never  meet,  and  thence  be  convinced  as  to  any 
given  set  of  like  lines  that  they  will  never  come  nearer  each  other. 
Place  before  us  two  new  substances,  and  we  cannot  tell  beforehand 
whether  they  will  or  will  not  chemically  combine ;  but  on  the 
bare  contemplation  of  two  straight  lines,  we  declare  they  cannot 
contain  a  space  ;  and  of  two  parallel  lines,  that  they  can  never 
meet.^ 

'  Mr.  Mill  maintains  {Logic,  ii.  v.  4,  5)  that  the  proposition,  "  Two  straight  lines  cannot 
enclose  a  space,"  is  a  generalization  from  observation,  "  an  induction  from  the  evidence 
of  the  senses."  That  observation  is  needed  I  have  shown  in  this  treatise ;  but  there  is 
intuition  in  the  observation.  That  there  is  generalization  in  the  general  maxim  I  have 
also  shown  ;  but  it  is  not  a  gathering  of  outward  instances.  Observation  can  of  itself 
tell  us  that  these  two  lines  before  us  do  not  enclose  a  space,  and  that  any  other  couplets 
of  lines  examined  by  us,  twenty,  or  a  hundred,  or  a  thousand,  do  not  enclose  a  space; 
but  experience  can  say  no  more  without  passing  beyond  its  province.  An  intellectual 
generalization  of  such  experience  might  allow  us  to  affirm  that  very  probably  no  two 
lines  enclose  a  space  on  the  earth,  but  could  never  entitle  us  to  maintain  that  two  lines 
could  not  enclose  a  space  in  the  constellation  Orion.  Mr.  Mill,  in  order  to  account  for 
the  necessity  which  attaches  to  such  convictions,  refers  to  the  circumstance  that  geo- 
metrical forms  admit  of  being  distinctly  painted  in  the  imagination,  so  that  we  have 
"  mental  pictures  of  all  possible  combinations  of  lines  and  angles."  We  might  ask  him 
wbat  he  makes  of  algebraic  and  analytic  demonslratiouaof  every  kind,  where  there  is  no 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  m  MATHEMATICS.  363 

In  mathematical  trutli,  tlie  mind,  upon  the  objects  being  pre- 
Bented  to  its  contemplation,  at  once  and  intuitively  pronounces  the 
judgment.  It  conceives  two  straight  lines,  and  decides  that  they 
cannot  be  made  to  enclose  a  space.  But  it  would  pronounce  the 
same  decision  as  to  any  other,  as  to  every  other  pair  of  straight 
lines,  and  thus  reaches  the  maxim  that  what  is  true  of  these  two 
lines  is  true  of  all.  There  is  thus  generalization  in  the  formation 
of  the  axiom,  but  it  is  a  generalization  of  the  individual  intuitive 
judgments  of  the  mind.  Hence  arises  the  distinction  between  the 
axioms  of  mathematics  and  the  general  laws  reached  by  observation. 
If  we  have  properly  generalized  the  individual  conviction,  the 
necessity  that  is  in  the  individual  goes  up  into  the  general,  which 
embraces  all  the  individuals,  and  the  axiom  is  necessarily  true, 
and  true  to  %^\  beings.  But  we  can  never  be  sure  that  there  may 
not  somewhere  be  an  exception  to  experiential  laws.  We  are 
sure  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space  in  any  planet, 
or  star,  or  world,  that  ever  existed  or  shall  exist.  But  it  is  quite 
possible  that  there  may  be  horned  animals  which  are  not  rumi- 
nant, or  white  crows  in  some  of  the  planets  ;  and  that  there  may 
come  a  time  when  the  sun  shall  no  longer  give  heat  or  light. 

In  the  case  of  our  intuitive  convictions  regarding  space,  number, 
and  quantity,  the  simplicity  of  the  objects  makes  it  easy  for  us  to 
seize  the  principle,  and  to  put  it  in  proper  formulae,  which  can 
scarcely  fail  to  be  accurately  made.  Hence  these  convictions  came 
to  be  expressed  in  general  forms,  in  what  were  then  called  Com- 
mon Notions,  at  a  very  early  age  of  the  history  of  intellectual  cul- 
tui-e.      The  disputes  among  mathematicians  in  regard   to   axioms, 

such  power  o(  imagination  and  yet  the  same  necessity.  But  without  dwelling  on  this,  I 
would  have  it  remarked,  that  in  the  very  theory  which  he  devises  to  show  that  the  whole 
is  a  process  of  experience,  he  is  appealing  to  what  no  experience  can  ever  compass,  "  to 
z\\  possihle  combinations  of  lines  and  angles."  Intuitive  thouglit,  proceeding  on  intuitive 
perceptions  of  space,  may  tell  us  the  '■' possihle  combinations"  of  geometrical  figures  ;  but 
this  cannot  be  done  by  observation,  by  sense,  or  imagination.  Supposing,  he  says,  that 
two  straight  lines,  after  diverging,  could  again  converge,  "  we  can  transport  ourselves 
thither  in  imagination,  and  can  frame  a  mental  image  of  the  appearance  which  one  or  both 
of  the  lines  must  present  at  that  point,  which  we  may  rely  on  as  being  precisely  similar 
to  the  reality."  Most  freely  do  I  admit  all  this.  We  may  "  rely"  on  it,  bi;t  surely  it  i.q 
not  experience,  nor  imagination,  but  thought  which  tells  us  what  must  be  at  that  point,  and 
tliat  it  is  a  "  reality."  The  very  line  of  remark  which  he  is  pursuing  might  have  shown 
him  that  (he  discovery  of  necessary  spatial  and  quantitative  relations  is  a  judgment  in 
which  the  mind  looks  upon  objects  intuitively  known,  and  now  presented,  or  more  fre- 
quently represented  to  the  mind. 


364  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

relate  not  to  their  certainty  and  universality,  but  to  the  forms  in 
Avhieh  they  ought  to  bo  i)ut,  and  as  to  whether  what  some  regard 
as  first  truths  may  not  be  demonstrated  from  prior  truths.  Such, 
for  instance,  is  the  dispute  as  to  how  the  axioms  and  demonstra- 
tions as  to  parallel  lines  should  be  best  constructed.  But  in 
regard  to  our  convictions  of  extension,  number  and  quantity,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  gather  the  regulating  principle  out  of  the  individual 
judgment,  and  the  expression  is  commonly  accurate.  It  is  different 
with  other  of  our  original  convictions,  such  as  those  which  relate 
to  cause  and  effect ;  the  greater  complexity  of  the  objects  renders  it 
more  difficult  to  seize  on  the  principle  involved,  and  there  is  greater 
room  for  dispute  as  to  any  given  formula  whether  it  is  an  exact  ex- 
pression of  the  facts. 

Another  interesting  and  still  disputed  topic  in  the  metaphysic 
of  mathematics,  relates  to  the  nature  and  value  of  Definitions. 
Mathematical  definitions  seem  to  me  to  be  formalized  primitive 
cognitions  or  beliefs  regarding  space,  number,  and  quantity.  In 
their  formation  there  is  a  process  of  abstraction  involved.  A  point 
is  defined  "  position,  without  magnitude  ;"  there  is  no  such  point, 
there  can  be  no  such  point.  "  A  line  is  length  without  breadth  ;" 
there  was  never  such  a  line  drawn  by  pen  or  diamond  point.  But 
the  mind  in  its  analysis  is  sharper  than  steel  or  diamond.  It  can 
contemplate  position  without  taking  extension  into  view.  It  can 
reason  about  the  length  of  a  line  without  regarding  the  breadth. 
In  all  these  definitions  there  is  abstraction,  but  I  must  ever 
protest  against  the  notion  tliat  an  abstraction  is  necessarily  some- 
thing unreal.  If  the  concrete  be  real,  the  part  of  it  separated  by 
abstraction  must  likewise  be  real.  The  position  of  the  point  is  a 
reality,  and  so  also  is  the  length  of  a  line  ;  they  are  not  independent 
realities,  and  capable  of  existing  alone  and  apart,  but  still  they  are 
realities,  and  when  the  mind  contemplates  them  separately,  it 
contemplates  realities.  So  far  as  it  reasons  about  them  accurately, 
according  to  the  laws  of  thought,  the  conclusions  arrived  at  will 
also  relate  to  realities,  not  independent  realities,  but  realities  of 
the  same  nature  as  those  with  which  we  started  in  our  original 
definitions.  Thus,  whatever  conclusions  are  arrived  at  in  regard  to 
lines,  or  circles,  or  ellipses,  will  apply  to  all  objects,  so  far  as  we 


BOOK  IT.]  INVOLVED  IN  MATHEMATICS.  3G5 

consider  them  as  having  length,  or  a  circular  or  elliptic  form.  We 
find,  in  fact,  that  the  conclusions  reached  in  mathematics  do  hold 
true  of  all  bodies  in  earth  or  sky,  so  far  as  we  find  them  occupying 
space,  or  liaving  numerical  relations. 

If  this  view  be  correct,  we  see  how  inadequate  is  the  representa- 
tion of  tliose  who,  like  D.  Stewart  and  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  represent 
mathematical  definitions  as  merely  hypothetical,  and  represent  the 
whole  consistency  and  necessity  as  being  between  a  supposition 
and  the  consequences  drawn  fi'om  it.^  This  is  to  overlook  the 
concrete  cognitions  or  beliefs  from  which  the  definition  is  derived. 
It  is  likewise  to  overlook  the  fact  that  these  refer  to  objects,  and 
the  further  fact  that  the  abstractions  from  the  concretes  also  imply 
a  reality.  This  theory  also  fails  to  account  for  the  circumstance 
that  the  conclusions  reached  in  mathematics  admit  of  an  application 
to  the  settlement  of  so  many  questions  in  astronomy,  and  in  other 
departments  of  natural  philosophy.  Thus,  what  was  demonstrated 
of  the  conic  sections  by  Apollonius,  is  found  true  in  the  orbits  of 
the  planets  and  comets,  as  revealed  by  modern  discovery.  All 
this  can  at  once  be  explained  if  we  suppose  that  the  mind  starts 
witli  cognitions  and  beliefs,  tliat  it  abstracts  from  these,  and 
discovers  relations  among  the  things  thus  abstracted :  the  reality 
that  was  in  the  original  conviction  goes  on  to  the  farthest  con- 
clusion. 

I  am  inclined  to  look  on  the  primitive  cognitions  as  constituting, 
properly  speaking,  tlie  foundation  of  mathematics.  The  mind, 
looking  at  the  things  under  the  clear  and  distinct  aspects  in  which 
they  are  set  before  it  by  abstraction,  discovers  relations  between 
them,  and  can  draw  deductions  from  the  combination.  In  this 
process  the  mind  proceeds  spontaneously,  without  thinking  of 
the  general  principle  involved  in  the  reasoning.  It  finds  that  A 
is  equal  to  B,  and  B  to  C,  and  it  at  once  concludes  that  A  is  equal 
to  C.  It  does  not  feel  that  in  order  to  reach  this  conclusion  it 
needs  any  generalized  maxim,  such  as  that  "Things  which  are 
equal  to  the  same  things  are  equal  to  one  another."  The  reasoning 
appears  clear  anterior  to  the  general  principle  being  announced; 
and  when  tlie    principle  is  announced,  it  does   not  seem  to  add  to 

»  Stewart's  Ekm.  Vol.  ii.  cliap.  ii.     Mill's  Lo'jic,  ii.  v.  L 


366  METAPnYSIGAL   PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

the  force  of  the  ratiocination.  It  does  not,  in  fact,  add  to  the 
cogency  of  the  argument ;  it  is  merely  the  expression  of  the 
general  principle  on  which  it  proceeds.  Still,  it  serves  many 
important  scientific  purposes,  as  Locke  and  Stewart  admit,  to  have 
this  general  principle  expressed  in  the  form  of  an  axiom.'  It 
allows  the  reflective  mind  to  dwell  on  the  general  principle  under- 
lying the  spontaneous  conviction ;  by  its  clearness  it  enables  us  to 
test  the  ratiocination ;  and  it  shows  what  those  must  be  prepared 
to  disprove  who  would  dispute  or  deny  the  conclusion.  If  this 
view  be  correct,  the  abstracted  cognitions  or  beliefs  in  the  defini- 
tions constitute  the  proper  foundation  of  mathematical  demonstra- 
tion, while  the  axioms  being  the  generalizations  of  our  primitive 
judgments  pronounced  on  looking  at  the  things  defined,  are  the 
links  whicli  bind  together  the  parts  of  the  superstructure  added,'' 

1  Locke's  Essaij,  iv.  vii.  11.    Stewart's  Elem.  Vol.  ii.  chap.  i. 

2  There  is  truth,  then,  in  a  statement  of  D.  Stewart:  "  The  doctrine  which  I  have  been 
attempting  to  establish,  so  far  from  degrading  axioms  from  that  rank  which  Dr.  Reid  would 
assign  them,  tends  to  identify  them  still  more  than  he  has  done,  with  the  exercise  of  our 
reasoning  powers ;  inasmuch  as,  instead  of  comparing  them  with  the  data,  on  the  accuracy 
of  which  that  of  our  conclusion  necessarily  depends,  it  considers  them  as  the  vincula  which 
give  coherence  to  all  the  particular  links  of  the  chain;  or  (to  vary  the  metaphor)  as  compo- 
nent elements,  without  which  the  faculty  of  reasoning  is  inconceivable  and  impossible" 
{Elem.  Vol.  ii.  chap.  i). 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THE  PHYSICAL  SCIENCES.     367 


CHAPTER    IV. 

INTUITIVE  PRINCIPLES  INVOLVED  IN  THE  PHYSICAL 

SCIENCES. 

These  sciences  must  ever  be  conducted  in  tlie  method  of  induc- 
tion, with  sense  and  artificial  instruments  as  the  agents  of  observa- 
tion. But  nearly  the  whole  of  them  do  at  times  go  down  to  first 
principles,  and  the  inquirer  is  obliged,  in  the  last  resort,  to  appeal 
to  what  the  mind  sees  to  be  true.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  not  the 
special  business  of  these  sciences  to  inquire  into  the  nature  or 
guarantee  of  ultimate  truths  ;  this  it  leaves  very  properly  to  meta- 
physicians, who  should  be  prepared  to  announce  laws  of  intuition, 
which  the  physicist  might  probably  employ  to  suit  his  pur- 
poses. They  might  be  more  profitably  employed  in  such  a  work 
which  lies  exclusively  within  their  own  province,  than  in  pur- 
suing speculative  ends  which  can  never  be  attained  by  human 
reason. 

In  all  the  sciences  which  meet  in  their  researches  with  regular 
forms,  and  correlated  numbers,  and  constant  or  periodical  motion, 
— such  as  mechanical  science,  statics  and  dynamics,  and  certain 
departments  of  astronomy,  optics,  and  thermotics, — mathematics 
have  an  important  part  to  act,  and  they  come  in  with  all  their 
intuitive  axioms  and  demonstrations.  On  these  I  need  not  dwell 
further.  I  leave  them,  to  refer  to  those  sciences  in  which  intuition 
enters  otherwise  than  in  a  mathematical  form. 

Most,  if  not  all,  of  our  intuitive  convictions  enter,  in  a  tacit, 
way,  into  physical  investigation.  Thus,  the  conviction  as  to  the 
identity  of    being    leads   us    to   chase    the   substance  through   the 


368  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [part  nr. 

various  forms  it  may  assume,  and  constrains  even  those  who  are 
most  opposed  to  hypotheses,  to  speak  of  ultimate  molecules  or 
atoms,  wliicli  change  not  with  clianging  circumstances.  The 
intuition  of  whole  and  parts  prompts  us  to  seek  for  the  missing 
part  after  we  have  found  certain  parts  which  have  been  separated 
by  analysis,  and  it  constrains  us  to  look  on  the  abstract  as  implying 
the  concrete.  Our  intuitions  as  to  space  make  the  physicist 
certain,  when  he  sees  body  now  in  one  place  and  again  in  another, 
that  it  must  have  passed  through  the  whole  intermediate  space  ; 
and  it  should  prevent  him  from  ever  giving  in  to  the  theory  which 
represents  matter  as  consisting  merely  of  points  of  force  ;  these 
points  cannot,  properly  speaking,  be  unextended,  and  there  must 
always  be  space  between.  Our  conviction  as  to  time  assures  us 
that  tliere  can  be  no  break  in  it,  and  that  when  we  fall  in  with 
the  same  object  at  two  different  times,  it  must  have  existed  the 
whole  intervening  time.  Our  intuitions  as  to  quantity,  as  to  num- 
ber and  proportion,  enter  more  or  less  formally  into  all  natural 
investigation.  Our  intuition  as  to  generalisation  insists  that,  in 
division,  the  sub-classes  should  make  up  the  class.  Our  conviction 
as  to  substance  and  property  prompts  us,  when  we  discover  a  new 
object,  to  look  out  for  the  exercise  of  its  properties  ;  and  leads  the 
physicist,  when  he  meets  with  sucli  agencies  as  electricity  and 
galvanism,  to  declare  that  they  must  either  be  separate  substances 
(which  is  very  improbable),  or  properties  or  states  of  substances. 
Finally,  the  fundamental  law  of  causality  directs  us  to  seek  for 
a  cause  to  every  effect.  The  physical  investigator,  engrossed  with 
external  facts,  and  seeking  to  clear  them  up,  will  seldom  so  much 
as  observe  these  fundamental  principles,  which  are  unconsciously 
guiding  him  ;  and  only  on  rare  occasions  will  he  find  it  necessary 
to  make  a  formal  appeal  to  them.  Still,  there  will  be  times  when 
those  most  prejudiced  against  metaphysics  will  be  tempted  or 
compelled  to  fall  back  on  them,  when  going  down  to  the  depths  of 
a  deep  subject,  or  when  hard  pressed  by  an  opponent.  It  often 
happens  that,  when  they  do  so,  their  expression  of  the  principle  is 
suflBciently  awkward  and  blundering  ;  and  I  think  they  have 
reason  to  complain  of  the  metaphysician  that  he  has  been  wasting 
his  ingenuity  in    unprofitable   and  unattainable   pursuits,  and   has 


BOOK  I.]  INVOLVED  IX  THE  PHYSICAL  SCIENCES.       369 

done  so  little  to  aid  physical  investigation  in  a  matter  in  which 
he  might  have  lent  it  effectual  aid.* 

There  is  a  class  of  sciences  which  proceed  on  our  intuition  as  to 
the  resemblances  among  objects  and  classes.  These  have  been 
called  the  classificatory  sciences  by  Whewell ;  they  embrace  zoology 
and  botany,  and  mineralogy  so  far  as  it  is  not  a  branch  of  chemistry, 
and  geology  so  far  as  it  deals  with  organisms.  In  all  these  the 
mind  is  guided  and  guarded  by  our  convictions  regarding  individuals, 
classes,  genera,  and  species.  Another  class  of  sciences  have  under" 
lying  them  our  conviction  as  to  substance  and  property ;  of  this 
description  is  chemistry,  and  the  sciences  which  treat  of  electricity 
and  magnetism  and  the  cognate  agencies.  A  number  of  sciences 
proceed  on  the  conviction  as  to  causation ;  such  are  all  departments 
of  natural  philosophy,  as  it  seeks  to  determine  the  laws  which  regu- 
late force ;  and  such  too  is  geology,  so  far  as  it  strives  to  find  the 
circumstances  and  agencies  which  haVe  brought  the  earth's  surface 
to  its  present  state.  In"  physiology,  too,  there  is  an  inquiry  after 
the  properties,  be  they  mechanical  or  chemical  or  vital,  which  have 
brought  the  organism  into  the  state  in  which  we  find  it. 

The  metaphysician  should  in  no  case  pretend  to  be  able  to  con- 
struct any  department  of  natural  science ;  but  keeping  within  his 
own  province,  it  is  competent  for  him  to  furnish  an  expression  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  cognition,  belief,  and  thought,  and  the 
physicist  might  then  be  able  to  use  them  under  the  forms  which 
are  best  suited  to  his  special  purposes. 

I  It  has  been  shown  by  Dr.  Whewell,  in  his  great  work  on  the  Ph'2osophy  of  the  Inductive 
Sciences^  more  particularly  in  his  Historij  of  Scienti.fic  Lhas,  that  each  kind  of  science  has 
its  special  fundamental  idea  at  its  basis,  and  he  classifies  the  sciences  according  to  the  ideas 
which  regulate  them.  The  phrase  "  ideas"  does  not  seem  a  good  one  to  express  the  intui- 
tive convictions  of  the  mind,  either  in  their  spontaneous  exercises  or  formal  enunciation, 
and  I  think  he  is  altogether  wrong  in  supposing  that  these  ideas  "  superinduce"  on  the 
facts  something  not  in  the  facts.  But  be  has  in  that  work  developed  great  truths,  which 
physical  investigators  were  almost  universally  overlooking.  I  have  not  in  this  chapter 
deemed  it  necessary  to  follow  him  in  his  elaborate  exposition  of  the  ideas  and  conceptions 
involved  in  the  various  sciences ;  I  have  contented  myself  with  showing  how  certain  intui- 
tive principles  enter  into  special  sciences. 

24 


370  METAPHYSICAL  PBINGIPLES  Fpart  hi. 


CHAPTER   V. 
APPLICATION    TO    THEOLOGY. 

SECT.  I.— FAITH  AND  REASON. 

The  word  Faith  is  used  in  various  senses,  some  of  them  extremely 
Avide  and  loose,  and  others  sufficiently  narrow  and  stringent.  But 
there  is  a  common  mental  property  to  which  tlie  phrase  points  in 
all  its  shades  of  meaning.  This  quality  cannot  be  positively  defined  ; 
but  we  may  bring  out  in  clear  relief  its  peculiarity  as  known  to 
consciousness,  and  show  what  it  is  not  by  distinguishing  it  from  other 
exercises  of  mind.  It  is  that  operation  of  soul  in  which  we  are 
convinced  of  the  existence  of  what  is  not  before  us,  of  what  is  not 
under  sense  or  any  other  directly  cognitive  power.  It  is  certainly 
a  native  energy  of  the  mind,  quite  as  much  as  knowledge  is,  or 
conception  is,  or  imagination  is,  or  feeling  is.  Every  human  being 
entertains,  and  must  entertain,  faith  of  some  kind.  He  who  would 
insist  on  always  having  immediate  knowledge,  must  needs  go  out 
of  the  world,  for  he  is  unfit  for  this  world,  and  yet  lie  believes  in 
no  other. 

It  is  in  consequence  of  possessing  the  general  capacity  that  man 
is  enabled  to  entertain  specific  forms  of  faith.  By  a  native  prin- 
ciple he  is  led  to  believe  in  that  of  which  he  can  have  no  adequate 
conception, — in  tlic  infinity  of  space  and  time  ;  and,  on  evidence  of 
His  existence  being  presented,  in  the  infinity  of  G-od.  This  enables 
him  to  rise  to  a  faith  in  all  those  great  religious  verities  which  God 
has  been  pleased  to  reveal. 

There  is  faith,  always  along  with  other  exercises,  involved  in 
nearly  every  act  of  human  intelligence.  There  is  faith,  I  acknowl- 
edge of  a  simple  kind,  even  in  the  very  acts  of  memory,  for  in 
every  exercise  of  memory  we  believe  in  that  which  is  not  before 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  371 

us.  In  many,  indeed  in  most  of  our  judgments,  there  is  faith 
implied,  as  when  on  seeing  an  eflfect  we  look  for  an  unseen  cause. 
There  may  be  faith  wrapped  up  even  in  the  very  operations  of 
inference,  as  when  from  data  before  us  we  infer  something  not 
before  us  ;  as  when  we  see  the  tide  ebbing  now,  and  argue  that  it 
will  be  flowing  so  many  hours  after  ;  or,  as  when  Columbus 
reasoned  himself  into  the  belief  that  there  was  a  world  lying  far 
to  the  west  of  the  lands  known  to  civilized  men. 

Xot  in  any  way  psychologically  different  from  these  exercises 
of  faith,  is  that  which  leads  us  to  believe  in  the  testimony  of 
others,  a  kind  of  belief  to  which  the  word  Faith  has  often  been 
specially  appropriated.  I  am  not  inclined,  with  some,  to  look  on 
this  faith  in  testimony  as  originating  in  any  intuitive  or  necessary 
conviction.  I  think  it  very  likely,  indeed,  that  there  is  a  native 
tendency  in  children  to  give  credit  to  the  narratives  told  them  by 
those  whom  they  love  or  esteem  ;  but  this  is  not  the  nature  of 
a  fundamental  or  irresistible  conviction.  Our  common  and  settled 
belief  in  testimony  is  the  result  of  observation,  induction  and 
reasoning.  We  have  found  by  experience  that  we  can  trust  our 
fellow-men,  at  least  certain  of  our  fellow-men.  In  all  this  there 
is  inference  proceeding  on  an  induction,  the  issue  being  not  a  faith 
in  all  men,  or  in,  all  statements,  but  a  belief  in  certain  men  and  in 
certain  narratives. 

When  we  rise  from  faith  in  man  to  faith — I  mean  natural  faitli 
—  in  God,  there  arc  the  same  elements,  with  certain  new  ones. 
The  new  ones  arise  from  the  convictions  regarding  morality  and 
infinity  which  attach  themselves  to  the  good,  the  omnipresent,  and 
eternal  God.  We  believe  that  this  omniscient  God  must  know  the 
truth  ;  that  this  infinitely  righteous  God  is  incapable  of  falsehood. 
At  the  same  time  this  faith  is  not  witliout  reason,  for  what  are  our 
intuitions  about  infinity  and  goodness  but  primary  exercises  of 
reason  ?  This  faith  is  not  even  without  reasoning,  for  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  there  is  a  single  link  of  ratiocination  in  that  mental 
exercise  by  which  we  rise  from  the  works  of  God  to  God  tlie 
worker,  and  there  is  certainly  deduction  implied  in  the  process  by 
which  we  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  declaration  of  this  God  of 
truth  must  be  true. 


372  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES        [part  hi. 

The  word  Reason  has  been  employed  in  as  great  a  diversity  of 
sio-nifications  as  the  term  Faith.  Sometimes  it  stands  for  the 
faculty  which  reasons  or  draws  inferences.  With  other  writers, 
reason,  as  distinguished  from  the  understanding,  denotes  the  power 
which  sees  necessary  truth  at  once,  without  an  intermediate  pro- 
cess. With  certain  English  writers  it  stands  for  that  aggregate  of 
qualities  (unspecified)  which  distinguishes  man  from  brutes.  Very 
often  it  is  a  general  name  for  intelligence,  or  for  the  cognitive 
powers  of  man.  When  persons  compare  or  contrast  the  exercises 
of  reason  with  those  of  faith,  they  should  be  careful  to  understand 
for  themselves,  and  to  signify  to  others,  the  sense  in  which  they 
employ  the  plirascs.  In  tlie  remarks  which  I  have  to  offer,  I  use  it 
as  embracing  every  form  of  human  intelligence,  and  I  attach  partic- 
ular cpitliets  to  it  when  I  refer  to  peculiar  exercises. 

It  is  wrong  to  represent  faith  as  in  itself  opposed  to  reason  in 
any  of  its  forms.  Faith  may  go  far  beyond  intelligence,  but  it  is 
not  in  itself  repugnant  to  it.  There  is  belief  involved  in  all  kinds 
of  intelligence  except  the  primary  ones,  those  in  which  we  look  on 
tlie  object  as  now  present ;  and  in  all  the  higher  exercises  of  reason 
there  is  a  large  faith-element  which  could  be  taken  out  of  reason 
only  with  the  certain  penalty  that  reason  would  thereby  be  clipped 
of  all  its  soaring  capacities.  What  could  cognition  say  of  duration, 
expansion,  substance,  causation,  beauty,  moral  good,  infinity,  God, 
were  faith  denied  its  proper  scope,  and  forbidden  to  take  excur- 
sions in  its  native  element  ? 

But  if  reason  is  not  independent  of  faith,  so  neither  should  faith 
proceed  without  reason.  In  particular,  it  would  be  far  wrong  to 
insist  on  any  one  believing  in  the  existence  of  any  object,  or  in 
any  truth,  without  a  warrant.  True,  the  mind  is  led  to  believe 
in  much  intuitively,  but  it  is  because  the  objects  or  verities  are  self- 
evident,  and  reflexly  can  stand  the  tests  of  intuition.  And  in  all 
cases  in  which  we  have  not  this  self-evidence,  it  is  entitled  to 
demand  mediate  evidence,  and  should  not  concede  credence  till 
this  is  furnished.  It  is  not  indeed  justified  in  insisting  that  all 
darkness  be  dispelled,  but  it  is  abandoning  its  prerogaiive  when  it 
declines  to  demand  that  light  be  afforded  ;  either  direct  light, 
which  is  the  most  satisfactory,  or  reflected  light,  where  direct  light 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  373 

is  unavailable,  as  it  is  in  by  far  the  greater  number  of  instances. 
A  legitimate  faith  has  thus  ever  the  sanction  of  reason,  and  in  some 
cases  it  is  the  issue  of  a  consequential  reasoning.  Faith  is  thus 
liable  to  be  tested,  even  as  reason  is ;  nor  are  we  at  liberty  to  lay 
reason  aside  on  the  pretence  of  following  a  faith  which  will  not 
allow  itself  to  be  examined.  Where  the  truth  is  alleged  to  be  intui- 
tive, it  must  submit  to  be  tried  by  the  marks  of  original  convictions. 
Where  it  professes  to  be  the  conclusion  of  reasoning,  the  process 
may  be  subjected  to  the  crucible  of  the  logic  of  inference.  Wliere 
it  claims  to  be  the  result  of  a  gathered  experience,  it  must  be  pre- 
pared to  stand  an  examination  by  the  canons  of  induction. 

It  is  not  good  either  for  reason  or  faith  that  it  should  "  be  alone." 
The  former  is  in  itself  hard,  bony,  angular ;  and,  unmarried  to  the 
other,  is  apt  to  become  opinionative,  obstinate,  and  dogmatic  ;  the 
latter,  without  her  partner  to  lean  on,  would  be  facile,  weak,  and 
impulsive,  and  given  to  partiality  and  favouritism.  The  one  is  a 
help-meet  provided  for  the  other,  and  let  there  be  no  divorce  of 
the  firmer  from  the  more  flexible,  or  tlie  more  devout  and  affec- 
tionate from  the  more  considerate  and  impartial. 

When  faith  has  evidence,  intuitive  or  derivative,  in  its  favour, 
by  all  means  let  us  follow  it,  and  this  however  far  on  it  may  lead 
us,  however  high  it  may  lift  us.  As  a  general  practical  rule,  we 
are  to  yield  to  what  has  fair  prima  facie  evidence  in  its  behalf, 
without  waiting  till  every  objection  is  removed.  Those  who  act 
thus  will  find  as  they  advance  that  difficulties  are  removed,  and 
further  light  furbished.  This  is  easily  explained.  It  arises  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  of  its  relations  which  is  being 
acquired,  and  from  the  suggestions  flowing  in  upon  a  mind  whose 
intellectual  senses  are  open  to  receive  knowledge.  Thus  cliildren, 
confiding  in  the  information  conveyed  by  parents  whose  veracity 
thoy  have  reason  to  trust,  and  pupils  believing,  on  the  testimony 
of  a  judicious  master,  in  the  utility  of  branches  of  knowledge  which 
are  at  present  felt  to  be  irksome,  will  find  as  they  make  progress 
that  confirmations  ever  come  in  to  strengthen  their  primary  trust. 
In  like  manner,  those  who  follow  sucli  liglit  as  they  have  in  relig- 
ion, will  find  further  light  as  they  grow  in  an  acquaintance, 
speculative  and  practical,  with  the  truths  to  which  they  are  thus 


374  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  in. 

bronglit  into  closer  propinquity.  Those  who  allo^Y  the  star  set  up 
in  the  sky  to  guide  them,  will  fall  in  with  more  formal  testimonies 
to  direct  them  as  they  go  on,  and  will  at  last  reach  the  very  spot 
wliere  truth — it  may  be  in  humble  guise — is  waiting  to  gratify 
their  vision,  and  to  receive  their  homage.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  refuse  or  decline  to  act  on  the  evidence  supplied,  may 
find  themselves  landed  in  hopeless  darkness.  The  rationale  of  this 
can  also  be  given.  Tliey  have  refused  to  follow  light,  and  in  the 
very  act  they  have  given  ojffence  to  the  conscience,  which  will  fill 
the  soul  with  reproaches  whenever  the  attention  is  forced  upon 
the  object,  from  which,  therefore,  the  mind  will  ever  be  tempted 
to  turn  away  as  from  a  personal  enemy,  whose  presence  reminds 
us  only  of  injury  in  the  past,  and  possible  mischief  for  the  future. 
Hence,  I  suspect,  the  unwillingness  of  many  to  consider  even  the 
claims  of  religion,  whose  initiatory  evidence  they  have  refused  to 
look  at,  and  tlie  further  evidence  of  which  is  tlierefore  denied  them. 
They  have  turned  away  from  the  object,  and  to  look  upon  it  now 
produces  only  irritation,  and  so  they  cannot  see  it,  as  they  might 
have  done,  under  its  pleasant  and  its  profitable  aspects,  and  at 
length  it  becomes  associated  in  their  minds  with  humiliation  and 
bitterness.  There  is  but  one  way  of  delivering  themselves  from 
this  unbelief  and  its  ever-widening  shadows,  and  this  too  many 
are  unwilling  to  submit  to ;  they  must  come,  like  tlie  apostle 
Thomas,  to  the  very  place  of  intercourse  wliich  they  originally 
avoided,  and  there  a  gracious  invitation  will  be  given  tliem  to 
search  the  object  round  and  round,  and  ir.  every  part,  till,  as  they 
find  unmistakable  marks  of  veracity,  every  doubt  will  vanish,  and 
they  exclaim,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God."  We  see  the  difierence 
between  the  two  classes.  The  one  class,  under  the  influence  of 
pride,  have  turned  their  backs  on  the  light,  and  they  have  the 
shadow  caused  by  their  obstruction  of  it  before  them,  and  they  go 
out  into  the  darkness,  and  are  lost.  Whereas  the  other  and  wiser 
class  keep  the  light  before  them,  and  they  leave  their  shadow 
l)chind  them,  and  they  go  on  towards  tlie  light,  and  as  they  ap- 
proach nearer,  the  shadow  lessens,  till,  as  they  stand  immediately 
under  it,  and  look  up  to  it,  all  blackness  and  darkness  are  dis- 
pelled. 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  375 

But  ou  the  oilier  baud,  we  should  not  place  ourselves  for  one  hour 
under  the  guidance  of  a  faith  which  has  no  evidence  to  furnish. 
There  cannot  be  a  more  perilous  advice  than  that  wliich  has  been 
given  by  certain  parties  to  the  doubting  and  inquiring,  whom  they 
exhort  to  force  themselves  to  believe,  when  as  yet  they  feel  that 
they  have  no  convincing  evidence,  or  to  profess  a  creed  in  order  to 
get  one  as  they  fall  in  with  evidence  in  advancing.  It  will  be  seen 
at  once  wherein  this  case  differs  from  that  previously  put.  In  the 
one  we  walk  with  reason  from  the  beginning,  though  we  do  not  just 
know  whither  it  may  lead  us  ;  in  the  other  we  are  without  reason 
from  the  first,  and  cannot  expect  it  to  come  to  our  aid  in  our 
difficulties.  In  the  one  we  set  out  with  light,  and  wait  for  more  ; 
in  the  other  we  set  out  without  light,  and  necessarily  at  random, 
and  if  we  fall  in  with  light,  it  must  be  by  the  purest  accident.  There 
cannot,  as  it  appears  to  me,  be  a  more  likely  means  of  leading  faith 
into  temptation,  than  by  counselling  her  to  yield  to  the  first  person 
who  pays  his  addresses  to  her  ;  for  speedily  finding  herself  deceived, 
she  may  refuse  to  put  confidence  in  any  other  ;  or,  being  seduced  or 
debauched,  she  may  lose  all  purity  of  discernment,  and  run  from  one 
lover  to  another.  The  issue  of  such  an  experience  is  commonly  either 
a  scoffing  infidelity,  or  a  restless  flitting  from  creed  to  creed,  and 
from  one  observance  to  another  ;  not  unfrequenlly  a  ridiculous  com- 
bination of  the  two ;  and  the  soul  takes  refuge  in,  and  seeks  repose 
under  the  nearest  and  most  imposing  superstition,  in  order  to  avoid 
a  blank  and  horrid  scepticism. 

There  is  indeed  a  sense  in  which  there  may  be  said  to  be  an  oppo- 
sition between  faith  and  reason  ;  but  it  is  as  there  may  be  a  seeming 
inconsistency  between  one  dictate  of  reason  and  another.  There 
occur  times  and  circumstances  in  the  life  of  every  one,  when  reasons 
are  addressed  to  the  intelligence  in  favour  of  inconsistent  courses, 
and  the  reasonable  man  decides  in  favour  of  the  one  for  which  the 
reasons  are  the  strongest.  So  there  may  also  be  times  when  man  is 
required  to  believe,  in  opposition  to  many  appeals  to  tlie  sense,  and 
even  to  the  understanding.  But  in  all  such  cases  reason  in  a  higher 
sense  comes  to  the  aid  of  faith,  and  announces  that  we  ought  to 
believe  in  spite  of  tlie  appearances  to  the  contrary,  and  the  difficul- 
ties started  by  a  quibbling  intellect. 


376  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [part  hi. 

It  is  fiu'tlicr  to  be  taken  into  account  that  there  are  truths  to 
be  believed  whicli  are  not  and  cannot  be  reached  by  any  native 
shrewdness  of  intelligence,  or  by  the  consecutive  deductions  of 
reasoning.  Of  this  description  are  some  of  our  convictions  as  to 
infinity.  Of  a  similar  character  are  many  of  the  doctrines  which 
God  has  revealed  in  His  Word.  In  regard  to  some  of  these,  not 
only  is  a  deductive  reasoning  incapable  of  demonstrating  them, 
reason  in  its  highest  degree  is  incapable  of  fully  comprehending 
them.  When  it  labours  to  do  so,  it  is  encompassed  in  darkness, 
and  finds  itself  utterly  at  a  loss  as  it  would  seek  to  reconcile 
them  with  other  truths  sanctioned  by  reason  or  experience. 
But  still,  even  here,  faith  is  not  without  reason ;  for  in  regard  to 
certain  of  these  truths,  the  intuitive  reason  which  commands  us 
to  believe  in  them  is  above  all  derivative  reason  ;  and  in  regard 
to  truths  revealed  to  us  supernaturally  by  God,  reason  calls 
on  us  implicitly  to  submit  to  them  as  to  an  intelligence  which 
cannot  err. 

Reason  always  demands  that  we  should  have  evidence,  immediate 
or  mediate,  in  order  to  believe  ;  but  it  does  not  insist  that  the  truth 
be  completely  within  the  comprehension  of  the  reason,  or  unclouded 
by  mystery  of  any  description.  We  who  dwell  in  a  world  "  where 
day  and  night  alternate,"  we  who  go  everywhere  in  tlie  light  accom- 
panied with  our  shadow,  cannot  expect  to  be  completely  delivered 
from  the  darkness.  Man  is  so  constituted  that  he  can  trust  in, 
admire  and  love  the  mysterious.  The  mind  experiences  a  pleasure 
in  contemplating  the  dim,  the  ancient,  the  mingling  of  light  and 
shadow.  It  avoids  instinctively  the  open,  uninteresting  plain,  where 
all  IS  dlscuvereu  by  one  glance  of  the  eye,  and  delights  to  lose  itself 
amid  a  variety  of  hill  and  dale  and  forest,  where  we  catch  occa- 
sional glimpses  of  distant  objects,  or  see  them  in  dim  perspective. 
Feeling  that  a  religion  without  a  mystery  "  would  be  a  temple 
without  its  God,"  the  soul  has  ever  turned  away  from  a  cold  and 
rationalistic  creed,  and  it  turns  towards  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible, 
where  no  doubt  there  is  the  brightest  light,  otherwise  we,  with  our 
dim  eyes,  could  not  see,  but  where  there  is  also  a  shade  in  which 
truth  is  perceived  faintly  and  obscurely  in  the  infinity  which  is 
bpread  out  before  us. 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  377 

Faith  has  ever  the  support  of  reason  ;  yet  it  goes  far  beyond 
reason,  and  embraces  much  which  is  far  above  the  conceptions  of 
the  intellect  in  its  highest  excursions.  It  is  because  man  has  a 
natural  capacity  of  faith  in  the  unseen  and  unknown,  that  he  is 
able  to  cherish  a  faith  in  the  revealed  truths  of  God's  Word.  It 
is  because  he  has  the  natural  gift  of  faith,  that  he  is  capable  of 
rising  to  the  supernatural  grace.' 

SECT.  II.-NATURAL  THEOLOGY;   THE  THEISTIC  ARGUMENT. 

The  idea  of  God,  the  belief  in  God,  may  be  justly  represented  as 
native  to  man.  He  is  led  to  it  by  the  circumstances  in  which  lie  is 
placed  calling  into  energy  mental  principles  which  are  natural  to  all. 
He  does  not  require  to  go  in  search  of  it :  it  comes  to  him.  He  has 
only  to  be  waiting  for  it  and  disposed  to  receive  it,  and  it  will  be 
pressed  on  him  from  every  quarter ;  it  springs  up  naturally,  as  the 
plant  or  animal  does  from  its  germ  ;  it  will  well  up  spontaneously 
from  the  depths  of  his  heart ;  or  it  will  shine  on  him  from  the  works 
of  nature,  as  light  does  from  the  sun. 

But,  while  the  conviction  is  natural,  this  does  not  prove  that  it 
is  simple,  original,  unresolvable,  unaccountable.  The  knowledge 
of  distance  by  the  eye  is  undoubtedly  natural  to  man  ;  there  is  a 
provision  made  in  the  organism  for  its  attainment,  and  all  who 
have  an  eye  acquire  it ;  yet  it  is  not  original,  but  the  result  of  a 
variety  of  processes,  physiological  and  psychological,  which  can  be 
pointed  out.  Our  conviction  as  to  God  seems  to  me  to  be  of  a  like 
nature ;  it  is  not  a  single  instinct  incapable  of  analysis,  but  is  the 
proper  issue  of  a  number  of  simple  principles,  all  tending  to  one 
point.  Such  being  its  nature,  the  process  admits  of  explicit  state- 
ment and  satisfactory  defence. 

Among  metaphysicians  of  the  present  day  it  is  a  very  common 
opinion  that  our  belief  in  God  is  intuitive.  In  particular  this  is 
the  view  set  forth  by  a  school  in  Germany  and  in  this  country 
which   allows   to   Kant   that  the    speculative    reason   can   find   or 

«  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  liowever,  that  ia  trust,  and  especially  in  all  religious  faith, 
which  always  implius  trust,  there  is  an  exercise  of  will,— we  give  the  consent  of  the  heart 
to  tho  assent  of  the  understanding. 


378  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [part  iii. 

devise  no  valid  argument  in  favour  of  the  Divine  existence.  Left 
without  mediate  proof  they  liave  called  in  a  special  cognition^ 
intuition,  or  feeling,  under  the  name  of  "God-consciousness"  or 
"Divine  Faith."  If  there  be  any  validity  in  the  conditions  laid 
down  in  this  treatise,  as  to  the  logic  of  intuition,  those  who 
advocate  this  view  may  be  called  on  to  show  that  such  an  intuition 
exists ;  that  it  is  original — that  is,  incapable  of  being  resolved  into 
anything  else ;  and  fundamental — that  is,  leaning  on  nothing  else. 
It  may  be  further  demanded  that  they  explain  the  precise  law, 
that  is,  rule  of  the  intuition's  operation.  Is  it  of  the  nature  of  an 
intellectual  cognition,  or  is  it  a  mere  feeling,  or  is  it  a  faith? 
What,  in  particular,  is  the  precise  object  which  it  perceives  and 
which  it  reveals,  and  how  much  is  revealed  regarding  that  object  ? 
Is  God  revealed  as  a  being,  or  a  person,  or  a  substance  ?  Is  he 
revealed  as  a  power  or  a  cause?  or  is  he  revealed  simply  as  a 
life  ?  Is  he  revealed  as  a  living  God  ?  or  as  an  infinite*  God  ?  or 
as  a  holy,  that  is,  sin-hating  God  ?  It  behooves  those  who  invoke 
a  separate  intuition  to  reply  to  such  questions  as  these,  in  a  way 
that  is  at  least  approximately  correct ;  and,  in  giving  the  answers, 
it  will  be  needful  to  reconcile  the  replies  with  the  known  facts  ot 
history,  and,  in  particular,  with  the  degraded  views  which  have 
been  entertained,  in  most  countries,  of  the  Divine  Being.  If  it  be 
a  partial  or  mutilated  God  that  is  revealed — say,  a  bare  abstraction 
without  qualities,  or  a  brute  force,  or  a  vague  life  or  activity — we 
are  left,  after  all,  to  depend  on  other  processes  when  we  would 
clothe  him  with  perfections.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  a  full- 
orbed  light,  shining  in  all  the  glory  of  wisdom  and  excellence  and 
infinity  that  is  hung  out  in  the  firmament  before  the  mental  eye, 
the  question  will  have  to  be  answered.  How  have  the  great  body 
of  mankind  come  to  see  him  in  such  distorted  shapes  and  in  such 
dark  or  hideous  colours? 

I  am  not  convinced  that  we  are  obliged  to  call  in  a  separate 
intuition  to  discover  and  guarantee  the  Divine  existence.  I  agree, 
with  the  majority  of  pliilosophers  and  divines  in  all  ages,  that  the 
common  intelligence,  combined  with  our  moral  perceptions  and 
an  obvious  experience,  leads  to  a  belief  in  God  and  his  chief 
attributes.     But  in  the  process  there  may  be,  and  there  commonly 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  379 

is,  a.  variety  of  elements  conspiriug.^     In  particular,  there  are  both 
experiential  and  a  'priori  elements. 

I.  There  are  facts  involved.  These  become  known  to  man  in 
the  ordinary  exercise  of  his  faculties  of  knowledge.  In  observing 
them,  he  discovers  phenomena  which  bear  all  the  marks  of  being 
effects.  Everywhere  are  there  traces  of  plan  and  purpose : 
heterogeneous  elements  and  diverse  agencies  conspire  to  the 
accomplishment  of  one  end.  They  are  made,  for  example,  in  the 
organs  of'plants  and  of  animals,  to  take  typical  forms,  which  it  is 
interesting  to  the  eye,  or  rather  the  intellect,  to  contemplate,  and 
which  look  as  if  they  were  built  up  by  a  skilful  and  tasteful 
architect.  Then  every  member  of  the  animal  body  has  a  purpose 
to  serve,  and  is  so  constructed  as  to  promote,  not  merely  the 
being,  but  the  well-being  of  ine  whole.  Even  in  the  soul  itself 
there  are  traces  of  structure  and  design.  Man's  faculties  are  suited 
to  one  another,  and  to  the  state  of  things  in  which  he  is  placed  ; 
the  eye  seems  given  him  to  see,  and  the  memory  to  remember,  and 
the  laws  of  the  association  of  his  ideas  are  suited  to  his  position, 
and  liis  disposition  to  generalize  and  his  capacity  of  grouping 
enable  him  to  arrange  into  classes,  in  due  subordination,  the 
infinite  details  of  nature.  If  once  it  be  admitted  that  these  are 
effects,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  prove  that  they  do  not  proceed 
from  the  ordinary  powers  working  in  the  cosmos.  No  doubt  there 
are  natural  agencies  operating  in  the  production  of  every  natural 
phenomenon  which  may  be  pressed  into  the  theistic  argument ; 
but  the  agencies  are  acting  only  as  they  operate  in  those  works  of 
human  skill,  which  are  most  unequivocally  evidential  of  design. 
Iq  the  construction  and  movements  of  a  chronometer  there  is 
nothing,  after  all,  but  natural  bodies,  and  the  action  of  mechanical 
forces,  but  there  is  room  for  the  discovery  of  high  purpose  in  the 
collocation  and  concurrence  of  the  various  parts  to  serve  an  evident 
end.  It  is  in  the  same  way  that  we  are  led  to  discover  traces  of 
design  in  the  works  of  nature  ;  we  see  physical  agents  made  to 
combine  and  work,  to  accomplisli  what  is   obviously  an   intended 

>  The  whole  theistic  argument  is  expounded  with  admirable  judgment  in  Buchanan's 
Faith  in  God.  There  is  vigorous  thinking  in  Dove's  Logic  of  the  Christian  Faith.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  do  more  than  refer  to  the  Burnett  Prize  Essays,  by  Thompson,  TuUoch, 
Orr,  etc. 


380  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES       [part  iii. 

cflcct.  Just  as  ill  the  construction  of  a  time-piece  we  discern  traces 
of  an  cflfect  not  produced  by  tlic  mere  meclianical  laws  of  the 
parts,  so  in  the  construction  of  the  eye  we  find  marks  of  plan  and 
adaptation  which  do  not  proceed  from  the  potency  of  the  coats 
and  luimours  and  muscles  and  nerves,  but  which  must  come  from 
a  power  above  thein,  and  using  natural  agencies  merely  as  a  means 
to  accomplish  its  end. 

Facts  illustrative  of  order  and  adaptation  furnish  the  stock  of 
the  common  treatises  of  Natural  Theology.  Most  important  ends 
are  served  by  having  them  advanced  in  great  number  and  variety. 
For  not  only  do  they  give  a  religious  direction  to  physical  science, 
not  only  do  they  help  the  devotion  of  those  who  are  already 
believers,  not  only  do  they  confirm  the  conviction  already  pro- 
duced,— they  tend  to  produce  the  conviction.  I  am  aware  that 
there  are  intuitions  involved  in  the  process,  and  in  particular  the 
intuition  of  causation.  But  the  intuitions  are  called  forth  by 
facts.  It  is  the  discovery  of  evident  effects  which  evokes  the 
intuition  of  causality.  A  son  of  the  desert  being  asked  how  he 
came  to  believe  that  a  God  existed,  replied,  that  he  knew  it  as  he 
kirew  from  traces  on  the  sand  that  a  beast  or  a  man  had  passed. 
By  all  means  then  let  works  unfolding  marks  of  design  in  the 
universe  be  multiplied,  and  lot  each  take  up  its  own  department 
and  yield  its  peculiar  contribution.  Nor  let  it  be  urged  that  one 
case  is  as  good  as  a  thousand  or  a  million.  There  are,  I  admit, 
single  cases  which  are  decisive, — such,  for  example,  is  the  construc- 
tion of  the  eye, — but  in  all  these  the  adaptations  are  numerous, 
and  they  should  be  carefully  unfolded.  But  it  is  by  the  number 
and  diversity  of  instances  that  the  possibility  of  doubt  is  pre* 
eluded.  The  single  trace  of  a  foot  in  the  desert  might  scarcely 
have  seemed  conclusive  to  the  savage ;  the  presence  of  many 
would  have  settled  the  question  beyond  all  dispute.  It  is  the 
multiplicity  and  variety  of  traces  that  show  so  clearly  and  satis- 
factorily that  nature  is  the  effect  of  construction.  It  is  a  happily 
ordered  circumstance  that  every  man  lias  evidence,  and  evidence 
in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  his  knowledge.  The  common  man, 
the  peasant,  the  artisan,  is  furnished  with  abundance  of  traces  in 
the  portions  of  nature  which  fall  under  his  immediate  inspection, — 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  381 

m  the  revolving  seasons,  in  the  grass  and  grain,  in  the  instincts 
and  organs  of  animals,  in  his  ovt^n  bodily  frame,  in  the  provision 
made  for  his  wants,  and  the  events  of  an  overruling  Providence, 
now  encouraging  and  now  punishi|ig  him.  The  man  of  science, 
according  as  he  widens  his  sphere,  finds  further  evidences  ;  and  in 
proportion  as  he  penetrates  deeper,  he  falls  in  with  more  recondite 
proofs.  I  cannot  then  agree  with  those  metaphysicians  who  look 
on  the  presentation  of  instances,  or  at  least  the  multiplication  of 
them,  as  useless,  and  who  would  have  writers  on  Natural  Theology 
to  be  tlireading  their  way  for  ever  among  the  intricacies  of  abstract 
discussion.  The  fact  is,  in  order  to  a  spontaneous  conviction,  we 
do  not  require  to  have  the  mental  principle  enunciated.  The 
unsophisticated  mind  will  have  the  belief  produced  more  readily 
and  effectually  by  reading  such  a  work  as  that  of  Paley,  than  by 
the  subtlest  exposition  of  the  metaphysics  of  the  argument. 

Still,  there  is  a  metaphysical  principle  involved,  and  this  should 
be  brought  out  in  every  professedly  scientific  statement  of  the 
complete  argument.  The  belief  will  spring  up  of  its  own  accord 
when  the  facts  are  presented,  and  this  whether  the  mental  law  is 
or  is  not  formalized  and  expressed ;  but  those  who  would  review 
the  conviction  must  have  the  mental  principle  as  well  as  the  facts 
unfolded,  and  it  is  the  office  of  metaphysics  to  furnish  it  to  natural 
theology. 

11.  The  principle  of  causation  is  involved.  The  object  being 
offered,  the  intuition  is  ready  to  act.  The  object  presented 
is  an  effect,  and  the  intuition  demands  a  cause.  It  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  there  is  a  possibility  of  a  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
phenomenon  is  an  effect.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  stones,  lime 
wood,  and  slates  might,  without  any  power  beyond  themselves, 
have  met  to  form  the  house  in  which  I  dwell ;  and  it  is  equally 
conceivable  that  the  flesh,  bones,  skin,  ligaments  of  the  human 
frame,  might  also  liave  congregated  into  my  bodily  frame  without 
any  liigher  power  contriving  their  harmony.  This  link  of  the 
argument  is  not  intuitive.  The  evidence  is  just  so  much  short  of 
demonstration  as  not  to  allow  the  possibility  of  doubt.  But  it  is  a 
probability,  a  moral  certainty  of  tlie  liigliest  order.  It  is  quite  as 
certain  that  the  eye  is  a  construction,  as  that  a  watch  is  so,  or  a 


382  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [part  iii. 

hoii?c  is  so,  or  a  steam-engine  is  so.  Tliis  being  admitted,  the 
phenomenon  comes  under  the  mental  law,  and  we  are  necessitated 
to  believe,  that  this,  being  an  effect,  must  have  a  cause. 

It  may  be  demanded  of  those  who  profess  to  expound  the  whole 
argument,  and  who  appeal  to  causation,  that  they  should  specify 
the  nature  of  the  principle  and  show  wherein  lies  its  validity.  If 
they  derive  it  from  an  extended  experience,  it  will  always  be  com- 
petent for  the  sceptic  to  urge  that  the  widest  experience  of  human 
science  and  of  history  cannot  justify  the  universality  of  the  law. 
True,  in  this  world  every  effect  seems  to  have  a  cause,  but  our  ex- 
j)cricncc  in  the  cosmos  does  not  entitle  us  to  go  beyond  it,  as  we 
must  do,  when  we  seek  a  cause  of  the  world.  Hence  the  import- 
ance, if  we  would  bind  firmly  the  ligaments  of  the  theistic  argu- 
ment together,  of  showing  that  the  principle  of  causation  is  a 
primary  one,  prior  to  experience  and  above  it.  It  may  be  further 
required  of  those  who  appeal  to  the  principle,  that  they  unfold  its 
precise  nature.  In  doing  so  they  will  find  that  every  joint  of  the 
reasoning  is  firm,  and  capable  of  repelling  all  the  weapons  which 
liave  been  directed  against  it. 

It  is  an  essential  part  of  the  internal  law  that  it  requires  the 
cause  to  be  adequate  to  produce  the  effect ;  it  must  be  a  power  to 
produce  tlie  effect,  the  given  effect.'  Here  again  an  experiential 
clement  must,  I  should  suppose,  enter.  Experience  must  tell  us 
what  the  precise  effect  is.  Experience,  too,  must  tell  us  that  there 
is  no  power  in  the  unintelligent  agencies  of  nature,  without  an 
arrangement  made  for  them,  to  run  into  these  typical  forms  and 
beneficent  collocations.  The  intuition,  meanwhile,  insists  not  only 
on  a  cause,  but  a  competent  cause  for  this  effect,  and  for  every 
separate  effect,  and  for  the  whole  effect  in  its  beautiful  co-ordina- 
tion and  harmonious  adjustment.  Our  idea  of  the  cause  thus 
grows  and  accumulates  with  our  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  effect, 
till  at  last  it  is  conceived  to  be  great  beyond  human  conception. 

It  is  an  essential  element  of  the  law  of  causation  that  if  the 
effect  be  a  real  thing,  the  cause  must  also  be  real,  quite  as  much  so 
as  the  effect.  Hence  the  importance  of  adhering  to  the  doctrine  of 
natural  realism   as  opposed  to   idealism.     For  when  the  effect  is 

1  I  have  endeavoured  to  establish  the  positions  here  used,  P.  ii.  B.  m.  Chap.  ii.  sect.  8. 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  383 

supposed  to  be  in  part  or  altogether  a  creation  of  the  contemplative 
mind,  the  cause  is  apt  to  be  regarded  in  the  same  ideal  light. 

It  is  of  the  nature  of  the  law  of  causation  that  it  looks  for  the 
cause  in  a  substance,  in  an  existing  thing  having  power  and  capable 
of  action.  The  intuition  does  not  say  what  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
stance must  be  :  it  says,  however,  that  it  must  be  a  substance  with 
a  power  commensurate  with  the  effect.  And  what  is  the  effect? 
It  is  an  harmonious  adjustment,  a  union  of  agency,  a  combination  of 
effort  wondrous  beyond  our  power  of  comprehension,  and  the  cause, 
whatever  it  be,  must  reside  in  an  existence  competent  for  all 
this.  So  far  the  mental  principle,  proceeding  on  very  obvious  facts, 
can  carry  us.  Perhaps  it  can  conduct  us  no  further  without  the 
aid  of  other  intuitions  employing  other  facts.  But  in  guiding  us 
so  far  it  has  fulfilled  its  function  and  discharged  an  important  office 
in  God's  service. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  principle  of  causation,  while  it  con- 
strains us  to  seek  for  a  power  in  a  substance,  does  not,  when  prop- 
erly interpreted,  necessitate  us  to  look  for  an  infinite  series  of  causes. 
The  intuition  is  satisfied  when  it  reaches  a  Being  with  power  ade- 
quate to  the  whole  effect;  and  if,  on  the  contemplation  of  the 
nature  of  Ihat  Being,  we  find  no  marks  of  His  being  an  effect,  the 
intuition  makes  no  call  on  us  to  go  further.  It  feels  restless  indeed 
till  it  attains  this  point.  As  long  as  it  is  mounting  the  chain,  it  is 
compelled  to  go  on  ;  it  feels  that  it  cannot  stop,  and  yet  is  confi- 
dently looking  for  a  termination  ;  but  when  it  reaches  the  All- 
Powerful  Being,  it  stays  in  assurance  and  comfort,  as  feeling  that 
it  has  reached  a  sure  and  unmovable  resting-place.' 

»  It  has  been  far  too  readily  allowed,  not  only  by  German,  but  of  late  years  by  British 
theologians  and  metaphysicians,  that  Kant  has  cut  up  by  the  roots  the  ordinary  argument 
for  the  Divine  existence.  The  truth  is,  that  Kant  was  shut  out  from  the  intellectual  or 
rational  (he  admitted  the  moral)  argument,  for  the  being  of  God,  by  the  defects  of  his  own 
artificial  system.  His  threefold  arrangement  of  the  th^istic  arguments  is  well  known  ; — 
I.  Thk  OxTOLOfJiCAL,  suggested  by  Augustine  (he  says  De  Spirltu,  G3,  "Id  est,  quo  nihil 
majus  cogitari  potest,"  etc.),  and  employed  by  Anselm,  Descartes,  and  Leibnitz.  It  is 
derived  from  the  idea  of  Uie  infinite,  the  perfect  in  the  mind  (see  supra,  p.  191).  It  may  be 
denied  that  Uie  idea,  as  an  idea  in  the  mind,  implies  the  existence  of  a  corresponding  object. 
Still  this  idea,  proceeding  upon  the  proof  of  a  designing  mind,  furnished  by  the  traces  of 
design,  and  combining  with  the  ideas  of  causation  and  moral  good,  helps  us  to  clothe  the 
Divine  J'eing  with  perfections.  II.  Thf.  CosMOi-oniCAL,  or  that  which  argues  from  the  world 
as  a  bare  existence  to  the  existence  of  Absolute  Ueing.  Kant  shows  that  this  argument 
proceeds  on  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect,  which,  according  to  his  theory,  has  no  object- 


384  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

III.  Otlicr  intuitions  take  hold  of  otlier  facts,  and  confirm  the 
argument,  and  clothe  the  Divine  Being  with  a  variety  of  perfec- 
tions. The  argument  is  a  cumulative  one.  It  gets  materials  from 
a  great  number  and  diversity  of  quarters,  indeed  from  every  quarter. 
It  is  the  business  of  natural  theology  as  a  science  to  spread  out 
these,  and  of  metaphysics  to  give  an  exact  expression  to  the  intu- 
itive elements. 

(1.)  Thei-e  is  the  conviction  which  we  have  of  self  as  a  being, 
intelligent,  thinking,  loving,  willing.  It  is  the  knowledge  which 
we  have  of  ourselves  as  spiritual  beings  which  suggests  the  idea  of 
God  who  is  a  spirit.  Those  who,  lik-e  Hobbcs,  or  like  the  French 
Sensationalists,  make  sensation  the  only  inlet  of  knowledge  and 
ideas,  can  never  consistently  reach  a  spiritual  God.  The  possession 
of  a  soul  liy  us  justifies  us  in  regarding  God  as  a  being  with  intelli- 
gence and  personality.  We  are  constrained  to  look  for  an  adequate 
cause  of  tlie  marks  of  design  in  the  universe,  and  we  cannot  rest 
till  we  call  in  a  Designing  Mind.  Besides,  this  self  is  an  important 
part  of  the  effect,  and  we  look  for  intelligence  as  alone  capable  of 
producing  intelligence.  Our  idea  of  the  Great  Original  Cause  of 
all  things  is  thus  at  one  and  the  same  time  enlarged  and  rendered 
more  definite. 

(2.)  I  have  shown  that  man  has  a  very  peculiar  class  of  intuitive 
convictions  bearing  on  the  subject  of  moral  good.  In  particular, 
every  one  lias  a  conscience,  which  declares  that  there  is  an  in- 
delible distinction  between  good  and  evil.  Surely  the  God  who 
implanted  that  conscience  must  himself  love  the  good  which  it 
would  lead  us  to  love,  and  hate  the  evil  which  it  would  impel  us 

ive  existence.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  mere  unformed  mass  of  matter,  as  an  exist- 
ence, would  prove  the  existence  of  a  cause,  or  anything  beyond  itself.  It  is  certain  that 
the  argument  from  causation,  apart  from  our  intuition  as  to  infinity,  would  not  entitle  us 
to  argue  an  infinite  cause.  III.  Tub  PnYsico-TnEOLOoiCAL,  or  that  from  traces  of  design. 
Kant  is  right  in  saying  that  this  argument  implies  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect.  He  is 
precluded  from  using  this  principle  in  such  a  connexion,  because  he  unfortunately  makes 
causation  a  mere  form  in  the  mind,  and  not  a  law  of  things.  When  we  take  the  proper 
Tiew  of  causality,  and  insist  that  when  the  effort  is  real  the  cause  must  also  be  real,  the 
argument  is  conclusive.  Nor  does  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  properly  interpreted,  require 
us,  as  Kant  urges,  to  seek  for  an  infinite  series  of  causes,  for  all  causation  or  power  resides 
in  a  substance  (see  supra,  p.  236).  True,  the  argument  from  design  does  not  prove  that 
God  is  infinite;  the  proof  of  this  must  be  derived  from  our  intuition  as  to  infinity.  It  thus 
appears  that  Kant's  objections  to  the  argument  from  design  proceed  from  the  mistakes  of 
his  own  philosophy. 


BOOKiL]  INVOLVED  m  THEOLOGY.  385 

to  hate.  This  moral  power  iu  man  manifests  itself  in  leading  us 
to  cherish  a  conviction  of  obligation  to  a  law  above  itself,  inde- 
pendent of  itself  and  of  tlie  mind  which  looks  to  it,  and  having 
authority  or  right  to  enjoin  and  forbid.  I  shall  not  go  the  length 
of  positively  afiirming  that  this  binding  law  of  itself  implies  a  law- 
giver, but  I  do  maintain  that  the  mind  feels  something  wanting  till 
it  hears  of  a  Moral  G-overnor  who  is  ever  ruling,  and  is  ready  to 
reward  and  punish. 

(3.)  The  mind  has  a  strong  conviction  that  there  is  an  infinite 
existence.  Space  and  time  are  conceived  by  themselves  as  un- 
bounded, and  wherever  they  are,  there  may  be  substance  dwelling 
in  them.  But  infinite  extension  and  duration,  and  our  belief 
regarding  them,  are  felt  to  be  void  and  empty  till  we  are  able  to 
place  in  them  infinite  substance  with  infinite  attributes  ;  but  when 
it  has  done  so,  the  mind  feels  that  it  has  found  the  wanting  truth, 
and  is  satisfied  supremely  and  to  the  full. 

TliLis  it  is  that  I  would  build  up  the  cumulative  idea.  But  I 
would  have  it  remarked  that  what  I  have  sought  to  construct  so 
systematically,  is  spontaneously  reared  in  a  much  more  irregular, 
or  piecemeal,  or  instantaneous  manner  :  that  which  I  have  placed 
first  may  come  last ;  or,  in  too  many  cases,  very  important  el.ements, 
such  as  the  recognition  of  the  high  spirituality  and  holiness,  or  even 
the  unity  of  the  Divine  plan  and  personality,  may  be  altogether 
omitted,  so  as  to  exhibit  a  partial,  a  broken,  or  distorted  image  ; 
or  the  whole  may  happily  be  called  forth  ^er  saltum  by  the 
strong  intuitive  energy  evoked  and  trained  by  a  Christian  educa- 
tion. 

Several  advantages  arise  from  giving  this  account  of  the  genesis 
of  the  conviction.  The  argument  thus  built  postulates  no  new  or 
peculiar  intuitions  other  than  those  which  guide  us  in  all  thought 
of  a  lofty  or  a  profound  character.  Our  appeal  is  to  the  universal 
principles  of  humanity,  on  which  all  men  act  iu  other  matters,  and 
which  they  are  not  at  liberty  summarily  to  discard  when  it  would 
constrain  them  to  believe  in  a  Great  and  Good  Being,  the  Author 
of  their  own  being  and  of  the  universe.  It  embraces  the  same 
mixture  of  elements,  experiential  and  intuitive,  as  is  found  in  the 
arguments  which  carry  conviction  in  the  more  important  transac- 
25 


386  METAPHYSICAL  PBINGIPLES  [part  in. 

tions  of  life.  It  carries  with  it  the  sanction  of  our  constitution, 
and  yet  allows  observation  to  contribute  out  of  its  ever-accumulat- 
ing stores.  When  ingenious  men  make  the  inference  demonstra- 
tive,  it  holds  out  incitements  to  other  ingenious  men  to  detect 
weaknesses  and  breaks  in  the  links  of  the  chain.  "When  there  is 
a  loose  appeal  to  consciousness  or  faith,  there  is  always  a  possi- 
bility of  persons  urging  in  reply,  "  You  may  have  such  a  senti- 
ment, and  I  allow  you  freely  to  indulge  it,  but  do  not  impose  it  on 
me  ;"  or  more  frequently  this  vague  feeling  may  be  satisfied  with 
a  God  as  vague  and  empty  as  itself.  If  the  account  given  above 
be  correct,  then  the  grounds  of  our  beliefs  can  be  spread  out,  and 
the  argument  defended  —  the  experiential  elements  by  the  logic  of 
induction,  and  the  mental  elements  by  the  logic  of  intuition  ;  and 
the  whole  pressed  home,  in  an  appeal  which  no  one  is  at  liberty  to 
decline  to  look  at  and  to  accept. 

The  account  given  shows  how  the  argument  may  be  resisted. 
The  conviction  springs  up  naturally,  but  not  necessarily.  Men 
may  overcome  it,  being  led  into  a  labyrinth  of  sophistry  from  which 
they  discover  no  outlet,  or,  more  frequently,  being  hardened  by  an 
encouraged  pride,  or  sensualized  by  a  course  of  vice.  An  atheist 
is  a  phenomenon  which  rarely  presents  itself ;  and  when  it  does,  it 
is  to  be  viewed  with  a  feeling  of  humiliation  and  compassion.  It 
may  be  allowed,  I  think,  that  there  have  been  persons  who  have 
striven  hard  to  persuade  tliemsclves  that  there  is  no  God,  and  have 
go  far  succeeded  that  they  are  troubled  with  the  conviction  only  at 
some  of  the  more  lucid  or  awful  moments  of  their  lives. 

We  see  how  man  is  responsible  for  his  belief  in  God.  Were 
the  argument  altogether  apodictic,  there  would  be  no  possibility  of 
doubt,  and  tlierefore  no  room  for  the  consent  or  dissent  of  the  will. 
But  the  argument  being  moral,  and  not  demonstrative,  there  is 
room  for  the  exercise  of  an  evil  heart  in  rejecting  it,  and  therefore 
of  a  candid  spirit  in  falling  in  cheerfully  with  it. 

The  account  given  shows  not  only  how  we  can  build  up  on 
defensible  grounds  the  argument  for  the  Divine  existence,  but  also 
how  we  can  construct  a  defence  of  Ills  more  peculiar  perfections, 
such  as  His  goodness,  justice,  and  infinity.  Those  who  describe 
the  whole  process  as  one  of  feeling,  are  apt  to  take  a  very  light 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IX  THEOLOGY.  387 

and  loose  view  of  the  Divine  Being  ;  they  talk  of  Him  as  mere 
power,  or  mere  activity,  or  mere  life.  But  when  we  give  a  wiser 
and  juster  view  of  the  conviction,  we  see  that  the  same  considera- 
tions which  lead  us  to  believe  in  His  existence,  also  constrain 
us  to  believe  in  His  unbending  righteousness  and  His  spotless 
holiness. 

Following  out  the  theory,  we  can  account  for  the  low,  the  un- 
worthy, the  perverted  representations  taken  and  given  of  the  Divine 
character.  When  the  higher  intuitions  of  the  mind  are  not  called 
into  exercise  by  proper  training  and  the  appropriate  objects,  they 
lie,  to  a  great  extent,  dormant,  and  so  God  or  the  gods  believed  in 
come  to  be  largely  stripped  of  spiritual  or  moral  qualities.  As 
men's  minds  became  barbarized  and  narrowed,  their  attention  was 
confined  to  a  very  limited  class  of  objects  as  the  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  power.  God  came  to  be  contemplated  not  as  the  author 
of  creation,  nor  as  the  actor  in  it  throughout,  but  as  operating 
merely  in  certain  portions  of  it,  which  were  contemplated  with 
peculiar  feelings  of  wonder  or  fear  ;  and  as  these  portions  were 
viewed  as  inconsistent  with  each  other,  there  arose  gods  many  and 
lords  many.  The  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God,  and  of  the  spiritu- 
ality of  God,  being  lost  sight  of,  the  gods  became  to  be  multiplied 
indefinitely,  according  as  it  suited  the  impulses,  the  fears,  the 
superstitions  of  the  votaries,  or  the  interests  of  the  priests  and 
their  temple.  Tlie  distinction  between  God  and  His  works  being 
lost  sight  of,  distorted  traditions,  and  baseless  fables  and  myths, 
the  natural  expression  of  human  wants  and  wishes,  clustered  in 
cver-iucrcasing  intensity  round  the  gods,  and  their  places  of 
worship,  and  certain  awful  spots  in  nature,  or  mysterious  agents 
operating  in  it ;  and  these  were  handed  down  from  mother  to  son, 
ever  growing  in  waywardness  and  strength.  In  the  history  of 
religion  we  have  two  things  to  be  accounted  for  by  those  who 
Avould  give  an  explanation  of  the  nature  and  genesis  of  the  reli- 
gious conviction.  We  have  an  all  but  universal  belief  in  a 
divinity  or  in  divinities,  with  nearly  as  universal  a  degradation 
of  the  character  of  Deity.  The  double  phenomenon  can  be  ex- 
plained only  by  supposing  that  there  are  native  religious  tenden- 
cies in  the   mind,  ever  working   but  ever  liable  to  be  abused  and 


388  METAPHYSICAL  PBINGIPLE8  [part  hi. 

perverted,  nml  requiring  to  be  called  forth  into  healthy  exercise  by 
tlie  presentation  of  suitable  objects,  and  indeed  to  be  guided  and 
directed  h\  a  standard  revelation. 

We  see  how  the  conviction  is  to  be  called  out,  strengthened,  and 
refined.  It  is  by  the  presentation  of  objects  fitted  to  awaken  the 
intuitions  into  energy,  and  to  keep  tliem  in  proper  exercise.  The 
idea  of  a  moral  and  spiritual"  God  is  to  be  aroused  and  kept  alive 
by  the  attention  being  directed  to  moral  and  spiritual  truths,  or 
rather  objects.  This  is  what  is  done,  in  the  best  of  all  modeg — 
in  the  concrete  mode,  in  the  Word  of  Grod— which  ought  therefore 
to  be  thrown  open  to  children  at  an  early  age.  This  is  what  is 
done  in  a  rciigious  training,  conducted  according  to  the  inspired 
volume.  A  God  who  is  at  once  Light  and  Love  is  set  before  us, 
and  he  is  represented  as  revealed  to  fallen  man  in  the  face  of  His 
Son  ;  holy  precepts  are  enjoined  by  Him  as  the  guardian  of  duty ; 
and  thus  is  generation  after  generation  reared,  the  child  being 
trained  by  tlie  parent,  and  the  child  becoming  the  parent  in  order 
to  train  the  child.  Natural  Theology  is  also  fitted  to  confirm  and 
widen  this  conception  among  the  comparatively  few  who  may  be 
expected  to  study  it.  According  as  men  are  taught  to  look  on 
their  own  nature  as  spiritual,  so  will  they  be  disposed  to  look  on 
God  as  a  Spirit ;  and  according  as  they  are  educated  to  look  on  the 
conscience  as  an  undefeasible  property  of  humanity,  so  will  they 
be  led  to  look  on  God  as  essentially  holy.  Still  it  is  only,  I 
believe,  by  an  abiding  written  revelation  that  tlie  truth  can  be 
made  patent  to  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  or  saved  from  per- 
version by  the  fancies,  the  foolish  speculations,  and  the  infidelity 
of  the  educated.  Only  thus  can  we  get  light  admitted  into  the 
dwelling  of  the  poor  man,  and  into  the  heart  of  the  busy  man  of 
the  world,  and  only  thus  have  it  handed  down  from  age  to  age. 
I  am  aware  that  even  though  the  Bible  were  withdrawn,  the  reli- 
gious conceptibns  would  go  down,  in  lands  which  had  once  enjoyed 
its  light,  to  the  next  age  in  comparative  purity.  But  as  genera; 
tions  succeeded  which  had  not  been  trained  in  its  lessons,  I  am» 
convinced  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  would  speedily  lapse 
into  some  degraded  worship,  probably  of  the  Mormon  type  ;  and 
that  the   philosophers,  pursuing   their   own   favourite   ideas,  would 


BOOKn.]  mVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  389 

exercise  little  influence,  certainly  little  influence  for  good,  and  care 
little  to  put  forth  what  little  they  have  over  an  unthinking  multi- 
tude, who  would  appreciate  their  distant  and  refined  speculations 
only  by  evincing  at  times  their  shrewd  sense  of  their  practical 
absurdity.  It  is  by  a  permanent  Luminary  being  kept  up  in  the 
sky  that  we  expect  light  to  be  so  diffused  over  our  world  that  all 
men  may  behold  it,  and  walk  in  it,  and  see  objects  in  it. 

SECT.  III.— ON  THE  IMMORTA-LITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 

The  doctrine  of  the  soul's  immortality  cannot  be  established  by 
rigid  demonstration  any  more  than  that  of  the  Divine  existence. 
But  in  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  there  are  necessary  principles  in- 
volved, which  look  to  obvious  facts,  and  issue  in  a  conviction  which 
may  be  described  as  natural.  The  expounded  argument  is  the 
expression  of  processes  which  are  spontaneous.  It  draws  materials 
from  a  variety  of  quarters,  and  admits  of  accumulation.  No  one 
of  the  elements  is  in  itself  conclusive,  but  in  the  whole  there  is  a 
high  probability  quite  entitled  to  demand  belief  and  practical  action. 
There  are  three  intuitive  elements  involved. 

I.  There  is  the  intuition  of  self  as  a  being,  a  substance,  a  spiritual 
substance.  Every  one  is  immediately  conscious  of  a  self  different 
from  the  material  objects  which  press  themselves  on  his  notice, 
and  of  the  action  of  mental  attributes  in  no  way  resembling  the 
properties  of  matter,  of  lofty  thoughts  and  far-ranging  imaginations 
and  high  moral  sentiments,  of  lively  and  fervent  emotions,  and  of 
a  power  of  choice  and  fixed  resolution.  The  circumstance  that 
the  bodily  organism  is  dissolved  at  death  is  no  proof  that  those 
qualities  or  the  existence  in  which  they  inhere  shall  perish.  We 
see  the  body  die,  but  we  never  see  the  spirit  die.  We  know  that 
the  soul  has  existed  ;  wc  have  no  evidence  that  it  ceases  to  exist. 
The  burden  of  proof  may  legitimately  be  laid  on  those  wlio  main- 
tain that  it  does.  The  soul  exists  as  a  substance,  and  will  continue 
to  exist,  unless  destroyed  by  a  power  from  without  capable  of 
producing  tliis  special  effect.  I  doubt  wliether  the  argument  can 
be  stretciicd  further.  It  is  possible  to  conceive  that  the  dissolution 
of  the  body  may  be  an  adequate  cause  of  the  destruction  of  the 


390  3IETAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES        [part  m. 

soul,  and  the  idea  could  not  be  repelled  by  any  positive  demon- 
stration. It  could  only  be  urged  in  reply  that  there  is  no  necessary 
connexion  between  the  breaking-up  of  the  bodily  organism  and  the 
death  of  the  soul,  and  that  the  soul  is  convinced  that  it  may  look 
on  in  the  midst  of  the  struggles  of  the  material  dissolution,  and 
survive  when  they  are  ended. 

And  here  it  is  worthy  of  being  noticed  that  we  have  no  experi- 
ence of  any  one  thing  being  absolutely  annihilated.  Man  knows 
no  such  thing  even  among  material  objects.  He  casts  wood  into 
the  fire,  and  the  existing  combination  of  its  elements  is  destroyed, 
but  the  elements  themselves  are  not  lost ;  one  part  has  gone  down 
into  the  ashes,  another  has  gone  up  into  the  air,  and  not  one  par- 
ticle has  perished.  What  is  true  of  material  particles  is  no  less 
true  of  physical  forces.  Man  cannot  create  a  physical  force,  and 
as  little  can  he  destroy  it ;  if  it  be  in  a  statical  state,  he  may  bring 
it  forth  into  a  dynamical  one ;  if  it  be  in  activity,  he  may  contrive 
to  counteract  it ;  but  he  cannot  create  it  on  the  one  hand,  nor  put 
it  out  of  existence  on  the  other.  The  force  which  came  from  the 
sun  to  the  plants  in  the  form  of  heat  in  the  geological  age  of  the 
coal-formation  is  not  lost ;  it  was  received  by  the  vegetable 
organisms,  it  was  laid  up  in  the  strata  of  the  earth,  and  is  ready 
to  burst  forth,  on  the  needful  conditions  being  supplied,  in  fire 
and  flame,  and  be  a  source  of  mechanical  force  in  steam.  And  if 
no  material  particle  is  ever  lost,  and  no  physical  force  lost,  is  it 
consistent  with  the  analogy  of  nature  to  suppose  that  mental  force 
is  lost?  If  mind  is  extinguished  on  the  dissolution  of  tlie  body, 
it  is  the  only  force  known  to  us  as  being  absolutely  annihilated, 
and  yet  it  looks  and  feels  as  if  it  were  the  most  imperishable  of 
them  all. 

II.  There  is  the  conviction  of  moral  obligation  and  responsibility 
pointing  to  a  judgment  day  and  a  state  of  righteous  retribution. 
The  argument  built  on  this  ground  is  felt  by  many  strong  minds 
to  be  the  strongest  of  all.  Kant,  so  severe  in  his  criticism  of  the 
psychological  argument,  yields  to  the  moral  one.  Chalmers  fondly 
dwells  on  it  as  the  one  which  actually  carries  weight  with  man- 
kind. It  proceeds  on  the  existence  of  a  moral  faculty  ;  but  its 
validity   does    not   depend  on    any  peculiar  view  which  may  be 


BOOKiL]  INYOLTED  IN  THEOLOGY.  391 

taken  by  us  of  the  moral  powers  in  man.     It  is  enough  that  man 
be  acknowledged  to  be  under  moral  obligation — under  moral  law  : 
that    law    is    imperative — it    commands    and    it    forbids :    it  is  a 
supreme  law — claiming  authority  over  all  faculties  and  affections, 
over,  in  particular,  all  voluntary  desires  and  acts.     This  law  in  the 
heart  points  to  a  lawgiver  who  hath  planted  it  in  our  constitution, 
and  who  sanctions  and  upholds  it.     Upon  our  recognising  God  as 
lawgiver,   the    conscience   announces    that  we    are    accountable    to 
him  ;  "  so  then  every  one  of  us  sliall   give  account  of  himself  to 
God."     But  if  we  are  to  give  account  to   God,  there  must  be  a 
day  of  reckoning  to  arrive — in  this  life,  or,  if  not  in  this  life,  in 
the  life  to  come.     He  who  hath  appointed  the  law  must  needs  be 
judge  ;  he  who  hath  appointed  it  so  authoritatively,  and  proclaimed 
it  so  publicly,  must  needs  inquire  whether  it  has  or  has  not  been 
obeyed.      But   this   judicial  work   is  not  fully  discharged  in   this 
present  state  of  things,  and  therefore  we  look  for  another.     There 
are  times,  when  God  seems  to  set  up  a  tlu'onc  of  judgment  on  the 
earth,  and  call  men  before  it.     There  are  ever  and  anon  instructive 
examples    of    studiously   concealed   wickedness    being    brought    to 
light   and   exposed  ;   of  the  arni  of  violence  being  arrested  when 
the  blow  was  about  to  descend  ;    and  of  the  deceitful  man  being 
caught  in  tlie  net  which  he  had  laid  for  others.     These  cases,  however, 
are  not  uniform,  nor  without  palpable  exceptions ;    they  are    cor- 
roborations of  our  moral  decisions,  but  they  do  not  come  fully  up 
to  the  demands  of  our  constitution,  which  is  thereby  only  strength- 
ened in  the  conviction  and  expectation  that  what  is  only  partial 
here,  will  at  last  be  universal. 

Our  moral  nature,  giving  these  general  intimations  as  to  the 
world  at  large,  seems  to  carry  a  more  special  message  to  every 
man— that  he  must  submit  to  the  judge.  This  is  a  feeling  which 
may  lie  very  much  dormant  in  many  states  of  the  existence  of 
man — as  when  he  is  engrossed  with  business,  or  absorbed  in 
schemes  of  earthly  ambition  ;  but  it  seizes  many  a  quiet  moment 
to  insinuate  the  truth  committed  to  it;  it  awakes  with  terrible 
power  in  the  state  of  relaxation  which  succeeds  the  fever  heat  of 
the  evil  propensities ;  it  discharges  its  lightning  flashes  in  the 
dark    hour    of   disappointment  ;    it   raises   its   sharp  voice    in   the 


392  METAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES  [part  in. 

stillness  of  the  sick-clianibcr ;  and  gives  forth  foreboding  utter- 
ances, which  few  dare  despise,  when  tliey  realize  the  thought  that 
the  time  of  their  departure  is  at  hand.  1  am  not  seeking  to  dis- 
turb men  by  dreams  in  the  night,  whicli  have  no  corresponding 
realities  in  the  day ;  I  am  not  raising  up  ghosts  in  tlie  darkness 
to  frighten  men,  as  if  tliey  were  children,  into  a  salutary  fear  :  I 
am  asking  them  to  read  what  is  graven,  as  by  a  chisel  on  a  rock, 
on  the  consitution  and  heart  of  all  men.  The  conscience  in  this 
life  is  the  anticipation  of  the  archangel's  trumpet  summoning  all 
men  to  the  judgment,  and  in  the  other  world  may  become  the 
worm  tliat  never  dies,  and  the  fire  that  is  not  quenched. 

III.  Tliere  is  the  intuition  of  personality  guaranteeing  that  the 
self  that  lives  and  sins,  and  the  self  to  be  judged,  is  the  same 
being.  I  am  not  advancing  this  as  a  primary  proof  that  tins  self 
must  abide  after  death ;  I  urge  it  simply  to  show  that,  if  the  soul 
outlives  the  body,  it  must  carry  with  it  its  essential  personality 
Tlie  soul  which  lives  after  death  is  the  same  as  lived  before. 

I  have  previously  noticed  the  circumstance  that  there  is  nothing 
lost  in  this  world.  In  particular,  the  soul  carries  with  it  the  con- 
viction that  it  should  abide.  This*  feeling  being  perverted  has  led 
to  a  doctrine  which  has  been  widely  entertained  in  various  ages 
and  nations,  that  the  spirit  passes  from  body  to  body.  But  in  this 
doctrine  of  transmigration  there  is  a  serious  mistake,  arising  from 
materialistic  ideas,  that  is,  from  attaching  to  the  soul  ideas  which 
have  a  meaning  only  when  applied  to  bodily  force.  It  is  easy  to 
conceive  of  physical  force  migrating  from  body  to  body,  losing 
meanwhile  none  of  its  essential  qualities.  But  in  supposing  that 
mind  thus  travels,  we  are  obliged  to  strip  it  of  one  of  its  essential 
attributes :  we  suppose  that  it  has  a  different  consciousness  in  its 
different  habitations,  and  thus  deprive  it  of  an  abiding  personality. 
It  is  curious  to  notice  that  a  similar  error  has  made  its  appearance 
of  late,  among  a  class  of  thinkers  who  profess  to  be  looking  into 
great  depths,  but  in  so  doing  have  overlooked  a  truth  near  at  hand. 
According  to  the  pantheistic  doctrine  of  these  times,  the  soul  at 
the  separation  from  the  body  goes  out,  as  it  were,  into  a  great  ocean 
of  spiritual  existence.  This  doctrine  is  also  materialistic.  "We  can 
conceive  of  air  thus  rushing  into  air,  and  of  a  bucketful  of  water 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  393 

losing  itself  in  a  river  ;  and  why  ?  because  neither  air  nor  water 
ever  had  a  separate  and  conscious  personality.  The  soul  as  long 
as  it  exists  must  retain  its  personality  as  an  essential  property, 
and  must  carry  it  along  with  it  wherever  it  goes.  The  moral  con- 
viction clusters  round  this  personal  self.  The  being  who  is 
judged, — who  is  saved  or  condemned,  is  the  same  who  sinned  and 
continued  in  his  sin,  or  who  believed  and  was  justified  when  on 
earth. 

Upon  these  arguments  others  grow  which  have  more  or  less  of 
force.  There  is,  for  example,  the  shrinking  from  annihilation,  the 
longing  for  immortality, — a  feeling  which  seems  to  guarantee  the 
veracity  of  the  expectation  cherished.  Then  there  are  affections, 
pure  and  holy,  springing  up  on  earth,  but  not  allowed  to  be  grati- 
fied on  earth,  but  which  we  may  hope  to  have  satisfied  to  the  full 
in  heaven.  There  are  attachments  and  profitable  friendships 
firmly  clenched  ,  only  to  be  violently  snapped  asunder  by  the 
stroke  of  death,  but  which  we  expect  to  have  renewed  in  a  place 
where  there  are  no  breaches.  Do  not  these  swelling  feelings 
which  agitate  the  bosoms  of  friends  when  one  of  them  is  summoned 
away,  seem  to  show  that  the  divided  waters  are  yet  to  meet? 
Then  we  see  from  time  to  time  intellectual  powers  cultivated  to 
the  utmost,  but  blasted  in  the  flower  when  they  seemed  to  promise 
a  large  fruit.  May  we  not  believe  that  in  a  universe  in  which 
nothing  is  made  in  vain,  and  nothing  of  God's  workmanship  lost, 
these  powers  have  been  nurtured  to  serve  some  great  and  good 
end  in  a  future  state  of  existence  ?  These  facts  combined  seem  to 
show  that  there  are  means  instituted  in  this  world  which  have  their 
full  consummation  in  the  world  to  come. 

SECT.   IV.-PANTHEISM. 

Pantheism  has  some  qualities  to  recommend  it  to  our  favourable 
regard,  especially  when  it  is  viewed  at  a  distance.  To  be  able  to 
reduce  the  multiplicity  in  the  universe  to  unity  may  seem  to  be 
about  the  highest  achievement  of  human  ingenuity,  and  to  be  the 
end  to  which  every  separate  science  points.  To  represent  every 
existing  thing  as  a  modification  of  tlic  one  God  seems  to  account, 


394  METAPHYSICAL  FBINCIPLES  [paet  hi, 

on  the  one  band,  for  the  variety  wliich  we  find  in  nature,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  for  the  wonderful  mutual  connexion  and  dependence 
of  all  the  parts.  The  system  fosters  the  admiration  which  the  en- 
lightened mind  feels  in  the  contemplation  of  the  beauties  of  nature 
and  art,  and  thus  falls  in  readily  with  those  assthetic  feelings  which 
become  stronger  in  every  nation  as  it  advances  in  refinement  and 
civilization.  It  allows,  too,  of  the  outpouring  of  some  of  the  devout 
sentiments  of  our  nature.  It  leads  us  to  connect  God  with  His 
works,  and  makes  us  feel  as  if  our  admiration  of  beauty  were  an 
act  of  devotion  paid  to  God,  of  whom  this  beauty,  whether  it  pro- 
ceed from  the  forces  of  nature  or  the  ingenuity  of  man,  is  an  ex 
hibition.  If  it  does  not  compel  us  to  fall  on  our  knees  in  prayer, 
it  at  least  encourages  praise,  for  what  is  all  this  admiration,  whether 
merely  heaving  in  the  breast  or  expressed  in  glowing  language  of 
the  loveliness  and  grace  of  the  objects  around  and  above  us,  and  of 
the  order  and  harmony  of  the  powers  in  nature,  but  just  a  hymn 
of  praise  to  Him  who  lives  and  acts  in  them,  who  indeed  con- 
stitutes them?  Pantheism  calls  forth  and  fosters  these  feelings 
because  of  the  truth  which  it  has  retained— truth  often  left  out  or 
rejected  in  certain  mechanical  systems  of  nature,  in  which,  to  use 
the  strong  language  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  God  is  represented  as 
"  sitting  as  it  were  apart,  and  guiding  it,  and  seeing  it  go."  As 
embracing  these  truths  it  can  use,  though  often  in  a  hypocritical 
sense,  the  profoundest  phraseology  of  the  Bible,  and  speak  of  God 
as  incarnate  in  His  works,  and  especially  in  man. 

But  it  must  be  added,  that  there  are  other  considerations  which 
recommend  pantheism  to  not  a  few.  Under  some  of  its  forms  it 
fosters  the  deepest  pride  ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  system  of. 
Spinoza,  where  man  is  represented  as  a  mode  of  Deity,  and  in  that 
of  Hegel,  where  human  intelligence  is  represented  as  identical  with 
the  Divine,  Under  every  form  it  delivers  mankind  from  a  sense 
of  personal  responsibility  to  God,  who  may  call  His  intelligent 
creatures  to  account ;  and  from  all  sense  of  guilt  and  fear  of 
punishment  in  a  future  life.  Being  a  modification  of  Deity,  wo 
are  not  called  to  cherish  any  deep  sense  of  dependence  on  Him, 
and  we  have  no  motive  to  pray  to  Him  ;  more  especially  as  His 
whole  procedure  is  an   eternal  flow  in  a  predetermined  channel 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  395 

beyond  the  control  of  our  prayers.  No  doubt  we  are  liable,  even 
according  to  this  system,  to  be,  not  exactly  punished,  but  exposed 
to  suffering  if  we  pursue  certain  courses ;  but  all  this  does  not 
imply  that  we  have  given  offence  to  a  living  being,  that  we  have 
raised  up  by  our  conduct  a  holy  indignation  in  the  breast  of  any 
one,  or  that  we  shall  have  to  appear  at  last  at  a  throne  of  judg- 
ment. What  we  have  to  bear  (this  is  the  sort  of  spirit  which 
Carlyle  has  caught  from  feeding  on  the  German  pantheists),  let  us 
bear  in  a  spirit  of  manly  pride,  as  knowing  that  we  cannot  by  any 
entreaties  influence  a  power  whose  movements  are  fixed  from 
eternity.  And  as  to  the  world  to  come,  doubtless  there  is  such  a 
world,  but  there  God  is  as  unpersonal  as  He  is  here,  and  we  become 
like  Him  by  casting  off  our  supposed  personality,  and,  like  the 
burst  bubble,  become  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  the  awful  ocean  of 
Beins:,  out  of  which  we  were  blown  to  float  for  one  brief  hour  as 
a  spectacle  on  the  surface. 

These  are  the  considerations  which  have  recommended  it  to  some 
of  the  best  and  some  of  the  worst  principles  of  our  nature.  It  is 
needful  to  examine  it,  and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  do  so,  for,  Proteus- 
like,  it  takes  a  new  shape  as  we  seize  it,  cloud-like  it  eludes  us  as 
we  would  grasp  it.  Few  of  those  attached  to  it  have  ever  attempted 
to  give  it  a  defined  shape,  and  most  of  those  who  have  attacked  it 
have  had  no  fixed  or  conceded  points  from  which  to  assail  it,  and 
the  weapons  that  they  shoot  neither  wound  nor  slay.  "  They  fight 
in  vain  ;  the  shadows  which  they  destroy  spring  up  again  in  a 
moment,  like  the  heroes  in  Yalhalla,  again  to  be  able  to  amuse 
themselves  in  bloodless  conflicts." 

There  have  been  very  exaggerated  statements  made  as  to  the 
extent  of  the  prevalence  of  pantheism,  and  this  both  by  its  foes 
and  its  friends.  Some,  in  a  sensitive  apprehension  of  it,  have  dis- 
covered it  in  systen\s  which  have  not  avowed  it,  and  in  which  there 
is  an  open  acknowledgment  of  the  existence  of  a  personal  God. 
The  historians  of  philosophy  of  the  school  of  Hegel  discover  pan- 
tlicism,  even  in  the  Hegelian  form,  in  almost  every  system  of 
pliilosopliy,  Asiatic  or  Grecian.  I  grant  that  in  the  great  majority 
of  the  popular  superstitions  and  pagan  philosophies  there  has  been 
no  sliarp  line  of  demarcation  drawn  between  God  and  his  works, 


396  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [pari  hi. 

and  in  most  of  them  there  is  supposed  to  be  some  matter  coeval 
witli  God,  and  independent  of  him.  This  arises  certainly  not  from 
an  elevating,  but  from  a  degrading  tendency  in  the  human  mind, 
which  has  a  difficulty  in  conceiving  of  a  spiritual  God,  the  Creator 
of  all  things.  Acknowledging  that  this  confounding  of  God  and 
His  works  is  nearly  universal  in  all  systems  of  religion  or  philoso- 
phy not  derived  directly  or  indirectly  from  revelation,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  comparatively  few  have  allowed  themselves  to  sink  so 
far  in  the  bogs  of  metaphysics  as  not  to  look  on  God  as  a  person, 
or  to  believe  that  God  is  in  no  way  distinct  from  his  works.  The 
number  of  avowed  pantheists  must  ever  be  very  few,  fewer  than 
belong  to  Buddhism,  Brahminism,  Mahometanism,  or  even  Mormon- 
ism,  and  they  are  to  be  found  exclusively  in  the  narrow  circle  of 
the  refined,  the  speculative,  and  the  idle.  The  creed  is  of  far  too 
subtle  and  cobweb  a  texture  to  stand  the  rude  jerks  and  the  storms 
of  common  life. 

It  has  assumed  an  immense  number  of  shapes,  if  shape  it  can 
be  said  to  have,  whose  very  nature  is  to  be  shapeless.  The  follow- 
ing seem  to  be  the  more  decided. 

1.  There  is  Material  Pantheism.  According  to  this,  it  is  the 
mere  matter  of  the  universe,  with  its  forces,  its  life,  its  thought, 
as  the  result  of  organism,  which  constitutes  the  One  All,  that  may 
be  called  God.  This  is  the  lowest  sort  of  pantheism,  indeed  it 
scarcely  deserves  the  name,  for  it  has  no  proper  unity  amidst  the 
diversity.  Yet  I  suspect  it  is,  after  all,  the  most  prevalent  among 
those  who  are  inclined  to  pantheism  in  this  country  or  in  France 
and  in  the  extreme  left  of  the  school  of  Hegel, — and  this  has  as 
many  supporters  in  Germany  as  the  higher  forms  have.  It  has 
something  to  recommend  it  to  vulgar  minds,  which  dislike  a  living 
God,  and  yet  are  not  prepared  to  give  up  all  belief  in  Deity.  It 
admits  nothing  but  what  can  be  made  patent  to  sense,  and  yet 
it  has  a  way  of  deceiving  itself,  by  speaking  of  the  aggregate  of 
material  existences  as  if  they  were  one  existence,  capable  of  some- 
thing like  order  and  intelligence. 

2.  There  is  Organic  or  Vital  Pantheism.  The  difficulty  which 
we  have  in  defining  life,  or  ?n  apprehending  it,  holds  out  a  tempta- 
tion to  many  to  explain   all   things  by  it,  which,  in  fact,  is  to  ex- 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  397 

plain  the  ignotum  per  ignotim.  All  nature,  they  say,  is  full  of 
life  ;  and  this  statement  is  doubtless  true,  if  by  life  is  meant 
simply  activity.  The  old  Cartesian  doctrine,  according  to  which 
matter  is  mere  extension,  and  is  in  itself  utterly  sluggisli  and  inert, 
cannot  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  discoveries  of  modern  science, 
which  show  us  the  chemical,  electrical,  and  calorific  forces  all  char- 
acterized by  incessant  activity.  But  while  matter  is  active  in  a 
sense,  this  does  not  show  that  any  one  particle  of  it,  or  that  the 
material  world  as  a  whole,  has  life,  meaning  organic  life.  The 
mystical  view  that  nature  is  a  plant,  an  animal,  or  an  organism, 
appeared  in  various  forms  of  Platonism ;  the  equally  unintelligible 
idea  that  all  natm^e  has  life,  comes  out  in  the  writings  of  certain 
physical  speculators  of  the  school  of  Schelling,  and  has  passed  over 
into  the  poetry  and  the  poetical  prose  of  this  country,  and  in  all 
cases  tends  to  substitute  some  sort  of  impersonal  power  for  a  per- 
sonal God. 

3.  There  is  the  One  Substance  Pantheism.  Persons  begin  first  by 
declaring  that  the  material  universe  is  the  body,  and  God  the  soul. 
This  is  an  error,  for  God  acts  independent  of  the  universe,  which 
is  His  creation.  It  is  not,  however,  pantheism  ;  for  persons  may 
hold  this  view,  and  yet  maintain  that  the  two  are  distinct.  It 
liowever  prepares  the  way  for  pantheism,  which  maintains  that 
there  is  a  spiritual  power  acting  in  the  material  form,  the  two 
beino-  all  the  while  one  substance.  We  owe  the  introduction  of 
this  system,  as  a  system,  to  Spinoza,  who  tried  to  found  on  certain 
views  of  Descartes  as  to  the  nature  of  substance.  According  to 
this  shy,  thought-bewildered  man,  there  is  but  one  substance, 
which  substance  has  attributes  which  the  mind  can  conceive  as 
its  essence,  and  modes  which  are  the  affections  of  the  substance. 
This  substance  is  infinite,  a  part  of  it  is  substance  finite,  and  man 
is  such  a  part,  he  is  a  mode  of  the  Divine  Substance.  This  sys- 
tem has  been  set  forth  in  his  Ethics  in  a  terrible  array  of  confused 
and  confusing  definitions,  axioms,  and  demonstrations,  in  whicli 
things  that  should  be  distinguished  are  confounded,  and  proposi- 
tions that  should  be  proven  arc  unconsciously  assumed.  Perhaps 
no  one,  except  Spinoza,  ever  held  his  precise  doctrine  ;  b  it  it  waa 
eagerly  grasped  at  by  those  who,  towards  the  end  of  last  century, 


39S  METAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES  [part  hi 

were  seeking  to  iutroducc  pantheism  in  a  more  shadowy  form.  It 
might  be  shown  in  opposition  to  it,  that  whatever  considerations 
are  urged  to  prove  that  there  is  one  substance,  may  be  employed 
to  prove  that  there  must  be  two. 

4.  There  is  Ideal  Pantheism.  It  is  the  issue  reached  in  the 
course  of  ages  by  a  process  of  philosophical  speculation,  starting 
with  improper  assumptions,  and  conducted  in  a  wrong  method  by 
persons  of  consecutive  and  systematic  minds,  who  will  follow  out 
their  favourite  notions,  however  preposterous  the  conclusions  to 
wliicli  they  lead.  Kant  began  with  making  time  and  space  sub- 
jective forms,  and  Fichte  went  on  to  make  matter  and  God  himself 
a  subjective  creation  of  the  mind.  Schelling  sought  to  enlarge  tlie 
system  by  making  mind  and  matter,  God  and  the  universe,  at  one 
and  the  same  time  ideal  and  real — ideal  on  the  one  side,  and  real 
on  the  other  ;  and  Hegel  came  forward  with  an  artificial  dialectic, 
to  show  how  nothing  could  become  something,  and  how  God  be- 
comes conscious  in  humanity. 

These  systems  differ  widely  ;  indeed  some  of  them  are  absolutely 
inconsistent  with  the  others.  In  particular,  an  ideal  pantheism  is 
incompatible  with  a  materialistic,  organic,  or  substantial  panthe- 
ism. Yet  among  those  who  are  inclined  to  these  views,  there  is  a 
constant  propensity,  when  attacked,  to  flee  from  the  one  to  the 
other.  When  we  prove  that  there  is  a  material  world,  they  assert 
that  this  external  world  intellectualized  is  God  ;  and  again,  when 
we  prove  that  there  are  laws,  typical  forms,  ideas,  above  the 
mechanism  of  nature,  they  solemnly  announce  that  these  objecti- 
fied constitute  the  universe.  But  we  cannot  allow  the  system  thus 
to  transmigrate  from  body  to  body  ;  I  insist  on  its  abiding  in  some 
one  of  its  shapes  while  we  subject  it  to  examination.  In  the 
course  of  our  extensive  survey  we  have  attained  principles  quite 
sufficient  to  exorcise  it,  whatever  be  the  form  which  it  assumes. 
It  will  be  instructive  to  find  that  the  intuitions  of  the  mind,  while 
they  conduct,  with  the  aid  of  obvious  facts,  to  a  belief  in  the  Divine 
existence,  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  pantheism. 

1.  Pantheism  is  inconsistent  with  the  intuitive  knowledge  which 
we  nave  both  of  mind  and  matter.  The  universe  cannot  all  be 
matter,  for  we  are   conscious  of  ourselves   possessing   thought  and 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  399 

intelligence,  and  of  planning,  designing,  and  executing  in  the  exer- 
cise of  free  will.  It  cannot  be  a  mere  organism,  for  we  see  mate- 
rial objects  wliicli  are  beneath  the  organic  state,  and  we  are 
conscious  of  souls  which  are  above  it.  It  cannot  be  one  substance, 
for  we  are  as  sure  that  there  are  two  substances  as  that  there  is 
one.  It  cannot  be  all  idea,  or  mere  idea,  for  we  are  cognizant  of 
the  object  as  well  as  of  the  thought ;  and  ordinary  experience, 
with  the  laAvs  of  thought  building  on  it,  carries  us  from  object  to 
object,  from  quality  to  substance,  and  from  effect  to  cause,  the  one 
being  real  as  much  as  the  other. 

2.  Pantheism  is  inconsistent  with  the  consciousness  of  self, 
with  the  belief  in  our  personality.  It  may  seem  a  doctrine  at 
once  simple  and  sublime  to  represent  the  universe  as  "Ev  koX  -rrdv, 
but  it  is  inconsistent  with  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  ineradicable 
of  our  primary  convictions.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  there  are  two 
or  more  persons,  it  follows  that  all  is  not  one,  that  all  is  not  God. 
According  to  every  scheme  of  pantheism,  I,  as  a  part  of  the  uni- 
verse, am  part  of  God,  part  of  the  whole  which  constitutes  God. 
But  in  all  consciousness  of  self  we  know  ourselves  as  persons ;  in 
all  knowledge  of  other  objects  we  know  them  as  different  from 
ourselves,  and  ourselves  as  different  from  them.  Every  man  is 
convinced  of  this ;  no  man  can  be  made  to  think  otherwise.  If 
there  be  a  God,  then,  as  all  His  works  proclaim.  Ho  must  be  dif- 
ferent from  at  least  one  part  of  His  works, — He  must  be  different 
from  me.  In  the  construction  of  his  artificial  system  of  a  priori 
forms,  Kant  most  unfortunately  omitted  the  knowledge  of  a  personal 
self,  and  thus  speculation,  in  the  hands  of  his  successors,  was  allowed 
to  flow  out  into  a  dreary  waste  of  pantheism.  When  we  restore 
the  conviction  of  the  separate  existence  of  self,  and  the  belief  in  our 
continued  personality  to  its  proper  place,  we  are  rearing  an  effective 
barrier  in  the  way  of  the  possible  introduction  of  any  system  in 
which  man  can  be  identified  with  God  or  with  anything  else. 

3.  Pantheism  is  inconsistent  with  man's  possession  of  a  will, 
and  a  free  will.  It  is  the  circumstance  that  man  is  possessed  of  a 
distinct  will  which  suggests  the  idea  that  God  is  not  a  mere  law  or 
principle,  but  a  person  witli  a  power  of  voluntary  determination. 
It  is  in  consequence  of   his   possessing   an   inherent  and   positive 


400  3IETAPHY8ICAL  PRINCIPLES         [part  hi. 

freedom  tliat  man  is  led  to  look  upon  God  as  also  free,  and  tliis  in 
a  lii filler  and  more  absolute  sense,  inasmuch  as  there  can  be  nothing 
to  lay  restraint  upon  His  liberty.  May  we  not  go  a  step  further, 
and  maintain  that  the  possession  of  voluntary  power  and  freedom 
on  the  part  of  man,  is  not  only  fitted  to  suggest,  but  is  a  proof, 
that  the  God  from  whom  they  proceeded  has  a  will,  and  that  this 
will  is  free  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  determine,  as  to  certain  forms  of 
pantheism,  whether  they  attribute  free  will  to  God,  or  in  what 
sense  they  aiBrm  or  deny  it.  The  doctrine  of  Hegel,  that  God 
awoke  to  consciousness,  and  acquired  a  will  in  tlie  consciousness 
and  will  of  man,  seems  to  me  to  be  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
essential  principles  of  reason,  which  requires  that  the  cause  be 
adequate  to  produce  the  effect.  But  what  adequacy  can  there  be 
in  a  power  without  will  to  produce  will  ?  All  forms  of  pantheism 
which  do  not  ascribe  a  separate  will  to  God  are  liable  to  the  objec- 
tion tliat  they  suppose  God  to  produce  in  man  a  free  will  not  pos- 
sessed by  Himself  from  eternity.  If  the  other  alternative  be  taken, 
and  will  be  ascribed  to  Deity,  then  have  we  two  wills  in  the  uni- 
verse, tlie  Avill  of  God  and  the  will  of  man,  and  it  follows  that  all 
is  not  one  in  any  intelligible  sense,  for  we  have  now  two  distinct 
wills,  which  may  run  counter  to  each  other.  Whatever  be  the 
philosophic  system  adopted,  we  have,  as  matter  of  fact,  the  hundred 
of  millions  of  distinct  wills  possessed  by  human  beings.  These 
separate  wills  show  by  one  process  that  God  must  have  a  distinct 
will,  and  by  another  process  laat  there  must  be  more  than  one  will 
in  the  universe,  and  both  conclusions  are  inconsistent  with  a  system 
which  says  all  is  one. 

4.  Our  sense  of  accountability  to  God  as  Judge  is  inconsistent 
with  pantheism.  There  is  in  man,  we  have  seen,  a  native  prin- 
ciple, which  leads  him  to  distinguish  between  good  and  evil,  which 
indicates  not  unobscurcly  that  the  evil  will  be  punished,  and  points 
to  One  ready  to  inflict  the  penalty.  Natural  religion,  it  is  true, 
can  say  little  as  to  the  time  and  manner  of  the  judgment,  but  it 
does  announce  that  the  sustaincr  of  the  moral  law  must,  among 
other  offices,  exercise  that  of  Judge.  But  the  feeling  with  which 
we  look  at  the  judgment  plainly  intimates  that  we  must  submit  to 
the  trial  in  our  individual  capacity.    It  is  utterly  inconsistent  with 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  ly  THEOLOGY.  401 

the  seDtiment  to  suppose  that,  prior  to  the  fiual  judgment,  man  ia 
to  be  absorbed  into  Deit/.  God,  as  Judge,  must  be  distinct  from 
the  persons  judged,  and  -sve  who  are  judged  must  be  the  same  as 
those  who  committed  the  deeds.  In  particular,  they  who  sinned, 
and  tliey  only,  are  liable  to  punishment.  We  hare  only  to  follow 
out  the  doctrine  of  personal  responsibility  to  find  it  setting  aside 
every  form  of  pantheism. 

Having  thus  inquired  into  the  truth  of  pantheism,  we  are  now 
at  liberty  to  look  at  its  consequences.'  And  this,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, seems  to  me  to  be  the  proper  order  in  which  to  proceed 
in  all  investigation.  The  argument  from  consequences  may  very 
properly  make  us  suspicious  of  a  doctrine,  but  cannot  absolutely 
disprove  it.  It  may  be  one  of  the  very  objects  of  those  who  pro- 
pound an  erroneous  dogma,  to  deliver  us  from  the  fear  of  God  and 
tbo  obligations  of  morality,  and  they  are  to  be  met  by  proving,  not 
that  their  opinions  are  injurious,  but  that  they  are  unsound.  But 
when  we  have  first  shown  that  a  doctrine  is  untrue,  we  may  then 
point  out  the  evil  consequences  which  flow  from  it.  It  will  be 
found,  in  fact,  that  the  true  always  leads  to  beneficent,  and  the 
false  to  pernicious  results.  This  does  not  seem  to  arise,  as  some 
have  supposed,  from  the  true  and  tlie  good,  from  the  false  and  the 
wicked,  being  identical,  but  rather  from  the  preordained  connexion 
instituted  between  them  by  Him  who  hath  marked  His  approba- 
tion of  the  true  and  the  good  by  making  them  yield  happy  fruits, 
and  hath  branded  the  false  with  His  disapprobation  by  causing  it 
to  be  followed  by  a  train  of  disastrous  consequences. 

In  weighing  the  results  to  which  the  system  leads,  I  would  not 
wish  to  be  indiscriminate  in  the  censure  bestowed  ;  I  by  no  means 
charge  it  with  leading  to  every  sort  of  evil.  As  containing  some 
important  elements  of  truth,  it  may,  under  some  aspects,  have 
rather  an  elevating  tendency ;  more  especially  when  compared 
with  those  systems  in  which  God  is  separated  altogether  from  the 
universe,  and  made  an  idle  spectator  of  its  mechanism,  or  those 
other  and  superstitious  systems  in  which  he  is  pictured  as  guilty 
of  favouritism  and  caprice.     But  in  comparing  it  with  an  enlight- 

>  There  are  fina  remarks  on  the  Pantheistic  spirit  in  the  First  Essay  of  Bayne's  Christian 
Life. 

26 


402  METAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES       [part  hi. 

encd  theism,  in  comparing  it  witli  revelation,  wliicli  it  would  set 
aside,  it  is  eliargcablc  with  certain  very  grave  consequences. 

It  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  special  advantages  of  the  system, 
that,  teaching  us  to  discover  God  in  all  his  works,  it  leads  us  to 
cherish  a  perpetual  affection  towards  Him.     But  in  this  representa- 
tion there  is  as  grievous  a  misunderstanding  of  the  character  of 
man  as  there  is  of  the  character  of  God.     It  proceeds  on  a  mistaken 
view  of  emotion,  and  of  the  objects  which  call  it  forth.    The  senti- 
ment raised  by  inanimate  beauty  is  a  mere   esthetic  feeling,  and 
has  nothing  in  it  of  love,  in  the  adequate  sense  of  the  term.     The 
feeling  with  which  we  contemplate  a  lovely  natural  scene,  such  as 
Loch  Lomond  or  the  Trossachs,  or  a  great  monument,  sucli  as  that 
of  Eauch  at  Berlin,  or  that  of  Canova  at  Vienna,  or  of  Thorwaldsen 
at  Lucerne,  is  not  that  required  of  us  when  we  contemplate  the 
Divine  Being.      Then   it    ma}^   be   doubted   wliether   any   abstract 
truth   or  general   principle  is  fitted  to  kindle  emotion.      Analysis 
an^   classification  are   intended   to  deepen  and   amplify  our  intel- 
lectual  conceptions,  but  are   by  no  means  fitted  to  rouse   feeling. 
It  is  not  by  dwelling  on  the  grand  ideas  of  the  lovely  and  the  good 
that   sentiment  is   evoked,  but  by  the   contemplation   of  a   lovely 
object  or  a  good  individual.     These  ideas  may  serve  to  widen  our 
views  and  raise  our  minds  above  a  weak  superstition,  but  they  are 
not  fitted  nor  intended,  by  Him  who  liatli  given  us  the  capacity  to 
form  them,  to  create  and  cherish  affection  in  our  bosoms.      It  is 
when  a  lovely  object,  a  fine  statue  or  painting,  is  presented,  that 
feelings  of  admiration  are  called  forth ;  and  in  like  manner,  it  is 
when  a  person  supposed  to  be  possessed  of  good  or  amiable  qualities 
is  brought  under  our  notice  that  we  are  led  to  love  him.     It  follows 
that  in  very  proportion  as  we  take  away  the  individuality  of  God. 
we  make  it  more  and  more  difficult  for  man  to  love  him  ;  and  if 
we  strip  Him  of  personality  altogether,  we  make  it  impossible  for 
the  human  heart   to   cherish   any  affection   towards   Him.      Hence 
we  find  that  the  pantheist,  when  he  would  create  a  passing  feeling 
of  gratitude  or  affection  towards  tlie  God  of  his  system,  is  obliged 
to  personify  him.     Were  he  to  look  upon  God  as  a  mere  principle 
of  law  or  order,  as  a  procession   of  processes,  he  would  find  his 
heart  continuing  cold  and  blank  as  he  contemplated  Him.  and  so 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  403 

he  uses  a  species  of  deception,  or  yields  to  a  delusion,  and  repre- 
sents Him  as  having  consciousness  and  life  ;  nay,  as  the  only  con- 
sciousness and  the  absolute  life.  In  this  way  he  may  succeed  in 
exciting  a  sort  of  mystic  feeling,  radiant  as  the  evening  sky  ;  but  as 
the  body  of  the  luminary,  which  alone  can  keep  up  the  glow,  is 
gone,  it  soon  sinks  into  darkness.  Even  when  the  feeling  is 
warmest,  there  is  an  idea  ever  pressing  itself  on  the  mind,  that  the 
whole  representation  is  fictitious,  and  hence  the  sentiment  pro 
duced  has  as  little  of  permanence,  and  exercises  as  little  control 
over  the  practice  as  that  called  forth  by  a  theatrical  show  or  the 
scenes  in  a  novel. 

Failing  as  it  does  in  this  its  supposed  advantage,  the  system  is 
chargeable  with  stripping  religion  of  all  those  severe  truths  and 
elevating  sentiments  which  practically  influence  the  minds  of 
men  for  good.  The  feeling  of  personality  having  been  destroyed, 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  for  an  artificial  system  to  destroy  it,  he  who 
lias  imbibed  the  spirit  of  pantheism  will  not  be  distinguished  by 
much  determination,  activity,  or  practical  philanthropy.  The 
energetic  and  devoted  character  of  Fichte  may  seem  to  be  an 
example  to  the  contrary ;  but,  as  Archdeacon  Hare  remarks,  "  To 
form  a  correct  judgment  concerning  the  tendency  of  any  doctrine, 
we  should  rather  look  at  the  fruit  it  bears  in  the  disciples  than  in 
the  teacher.  For  he  only  made  it :  they  are  made  by  it."  We  see 
the  true  influence  of  pantheism  in  the  indolent  and  dreamy  char- 
acter of  the  Brahmins  and  Buddliists  of  the  East.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  there  should  arise  among  pantheists  a  great 
reformer,  an  energetic  philanthropist,  a  self-devoted  martyr.  Along- 
with  personality  there  must  depart  all  feelings  of  responsibility, 
all  sense  of  obligation,  all  consciousness  of  guilt,  all  apprehension 
of  a  judgment-day ;  and  when  these  are  gone,  there  can  remain 
no  very  acute  perception  of  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  between  good  and  evil.  This  feeling  is  promoted  by  the 
representations  given  of  tlie  eternal  ideas,  processes,  and  laws,  which 
are  supposed  to  move  on  in  one  everlasting  stream,  raising  up, 
bearing  along  with  them,  and  turning  to  their  own  end,  every  event, 
the  important  and  tlie  unimportant,  the  evil  and  the  good.  Viewed 
in  this  light,  evil  comes  to  be  esteemed  the  lesser  good,  or  rather, 


404  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

as  merely  the  lesser  good  for  tlie  present ;  for  in  the  end  it  may 
come  to  be  the  greater,  or  the  very  greatest  good.  It  is  a  necessary 
tenet  of  this  system  that  the  evil,  equally  with  the  good,  is  a  part 
of  God — some  one  speaks  of  the  "  good  as  God's  right  hand,  and 
the  evil  as  the  left."  It  is  vain  to  suppose  that  under  such  a 
system  God  can  seriously  purpose  to  punish  the  sin,  or  that  he  can 
so  much  as  condemn  it.  Those  who  are  thoroughly  imbued  with 
the  spirit  of  tlic  system,  will  be  led  first  of  all  to  excuse  evil  in 
themselves,  and  then  they  will  be  led  to  palliate  it  in  others. 
One  of  the  issues  will  be  very  perverted  views  of  contemporaneous 
society  and  of  past  history.  The  responsibility  of  the  individual 
will  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  contemplation  of  the  vast  processes 
and  sweeping  cycles  Avhicli  move  like  gigantic  wheels,  apparently 
as  well  without  as  with  individual  effort ;  and  crime,  especially 
brilliant  and  successful  crime,  will  be  spoken  of  with  little  or  no 
condemnation,  because  regarded  as  a  step  necessary  to  grand  and 
good  results.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  pantheism,  in  nearly 
all  its  forms  (if  not  in  all),  rejects  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  at  least  of  a  personal  immortality.  Our  personality 
in  this  life  is  an  illusion,  or  rather,  a  delusion,  and  at  death  the 
deception  ceases,  and  the  reality  commences  in  the  soul  being  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  all-absorbing  One,  and  lost  in  its  individuality, 
as  the  river  is  when  it  flows  into  the  ocean.  It  should  be  the 
grand  aim  and  the  holy  office  of  religion  to  raise  the  downward 
tendencies  and  to  lay  a  restraint  on  the  evil  propensities  of  hu- 
manity ;  and  this  it  can  do  only  by  the  holy  truths  which  it 
proclaims,  and  tlie  self-sacrificing  sentiments  which  it  calls  forth. 
But  so  far  from  providing  or  fostering  these,  pantheism  seems  rather 
to  remove  them  out  of  the  way,  or  destroy  their  force ;  and  instead 
of  stemming  the  stream  of  evil,  it  rather  sails  along  with  it,  and 
helps  to  swell  its  waters. 

Such,  if  I  do  not  mistake,  must  be  the  influence  of  pantheism 
on  the  individuals  who  are  under  its  sway.  Equally  pernicious 
would  be  its  power  in  a  country  in  which  it  might  prevail  to  any 
considerable  extent.  It  is  foolish  indeed  to  expect  or  to  fear  that 
the  majority  of  any  people  will  ever  attach  themselves  to  so 
mystical,  and  yet,  withal,  so  artificial  a  system.     The  great  body 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  405 

of  mankind  must — happily  or  ualiappily^be  far  too  much  en- 
grossed with  realities,  will  be  far  too  eagerly  bent  on  seeking 
calculable  gains,  and  exposed  to  far  too  many  real  sorrows,  to 
allow  of  their  wandering  into  this  land  of  dreams  and  shadows. 
But  if  ever  pantheism  should  come,  in  any  modern  nation,  to  be 
favourably  received  or  extensively  adopted  among  those  addicted 
to  reflection  or  possessed  of  abundant  leisure,  the  effect  on  the 
character  of  the  people  would  be  most  pernicious.  It  would  neces- 
sitate an  immediate  revival  of  the  old  distinction,  done  away  with 
by  Christianity,  of  an  esoteric  doctrine  for  the  thinking  few,  and 
an  exoteric  doctrine  for -the  unthinking  many.  The  inner  doctrine 
of  the  select  class  would  be  an  airy  pantheism,  scarcely  differing 
from  a  blank  atheism,  and  the  outer  doctrine  of  the  multitude 
would  be  a  hero-worship,  a  nature-worship,  or  an  idol-worship  ; 
in  short,  some  description  of  creature-worship,  with  all  its  degrading 
tendencies.  All  this  would  take  place  without  any  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  learned  to  restrain  the  evil  ;  nay,  the  learned  would 
join  in  the  evil  and  encourage  it  ;  and  this  worship  would  be 
'  defended  by  them  as  a  homage  paid  to  the  part  of  the  One  All  as 
representative  of  the  whole.  They  would  acknowledge  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  are  incapable  of  seeing  any  such  meaning  ;  Ijut 
then,  it  is  by  this  very  circumstance  that  they  themselves  are 
separated  from  the  vulgar,  who  must  necessarily  be  doomed  to 
act  without  knowing  the  significance  of  their  acts.  "  Posterity," 
says  Jacobi,  "  will  not  wonder,  if  in  the  desert  of  unbelief,  men 
raise  serpents  and  pray  to  golden  calves  once  more,  and  if  in  this 
serpent  and  calf  service  pliilosophers  tend  the  altars."  In  such  a 
state  of  things  it  is  evident  we  should  have  the  idle  and  the 
educated  classes  proud,  haughty,  self-righteous,  mostly  pleasure- 
loving  and  dissolute,  and  the  great  body  of  the  people  abandoned — 
without  any  serious  attempt  being  made  to  elevate  them — to  the 
grossest  darkness  and  the  most  grovelling  superstition,  relieved 
only  by  a  love  of  imposing  spectacles  which  impress  the  senses  or 
excite  the  imagination  ;  while  now  and  then,  and  here  and  tl\ere, 
we  should  have  some  earnest  or  malicious  sceptic  attacking  tlic 
hypocrisy  of  the  one  class,  and^  the  ignorance  of  tlie  otlicr,  and 
troubling  both,  without  being  able  to  improve  either  by  supplying 


406  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  in. 

anything  more  solid  or  satisfying.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  more 
advanced  nations  of  modern  Europe  are  to  be  saved  from  sucli  an 
issue  only  by  tlie  active  and  earnest  propagation  of  Scriptural 
liglit. 

SECT,   v.— ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 

In  avoiding  pantheism  it  is  not  necessary  to  fall  into  anthropo- 
morpliism.  The  truth  is,  of  all  systems  pantheism  is  the  most  apt, 
in  our  times,  to  land  in  anthropomorphism.  For  if  God  and  his 
works  be  one,  then  we  will  be  led  to  look  on  humanity  as  the 
highest  manifestation  of  the  Divinity,  and  the  natural  devoutness 
of  the  heart  will  find  vent  in  hero-worship,  or  the  foolish  raving 
about  great  men,  which  has  been  so  common  amongst  the  eminent 
literary  men  of  the  age  now  passing  away,  tlie  issue  of  tlie  panthe- 
ism which  rose  like  a  vapour  in  Germany,  and  came  over  like  a 
fog  into  Britain  and  America. 

Antliropomorphism  (like  pantheism)  has  a  truth,  and  it  has  an 
error. 

I.  In  believing  in  the  existence  of  God,  we  are  following  the 
principles  of  reason  to  their  logical  consequences.  But  the  same 
convictions  which  lead  us  to  believe  in  God,  also  make  ns  clothe 
him  in  perfect  perfections.  We  ascribe  to  Hun  the  attributes 
adequate  to  produce  tlie  results  falling  under  our  notice  in  the 
world  and  in  the  soul.  In  particular,  our  intuitions  being  native, 
constitutional,  fundamental,  have  all  the  sanction  of  God,  and  we 
must  hold  that  what  they  declare  to  be  true  and  good  must  be 
true  and  good  to  the  Divine  comprehension.  For  all  this  we  have 
the  sanction,  first  of  reason,  and  then,  when  we  have  found  a  good 
God,  of  the  Divine  veracity.  Our  sense  of  good  and  of  responsi- 
bility to  Him  constrain  us  to  believe  that  he  approves  of  the  good 
which  he  would  load  us  to  love  and  practice,  and  that  he  must 
condemn  the  evil  which  he  condemns  in  us. 

In  proceeding  in  this  manner  we  are  led  by  reason  to  believe 
that  God  must  have  qualities  like  those  which  we  possess,  or 
rather  that  we  possess  qualities  in  some  degree  resembling  those 
of  the  Divine  Being  ;  in  other  words,  we  reach  the  doctrine  of 
which   Plato   had   a  glimpse,   but   which   is   fully  revealed  in   the 


BOOK  IT.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  407 

opening  of  our  Bible,  that  man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God. 
Hence  the  tendency — good  and  beneficent  so  far  as  not  perverted 
— of  our  natures  to  assimilate  the  Divine  Being  to  ourselves,  and 
to  bring  him  into  a  close  relationship  to  us.  Reason,  speculative 
and  practical,  contemplates  God  as  the  Perfect  Reason  and  the 
Perfect  Righteousness,  from  which  as  a  sun  and  centre  proceed  all 
the  rays  in  which  it  rejoices.  The  heart  craves  for  a  Being  com- 
passionating distress,  and  sympatliizing  with  the  sufferers.  Let  it 
be  added,  that  it  has  an  instinctive  feeling  of  fear  towards  a 
Being  who  hates  the  evil,  and  who  is  expected  to  punish  it.  It  is 
only  so  far  as  we  conceive  God  as  clothed  with  some  perfections, 
that  our  affections  can  be  made  to  flow  forth  towards  him  ;  only  so 
far  as  we  conceive  him  as  clothed  with  hujh  perfections,  that  ho 
can  be  an  object  of  love  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  holy  fear  on  the 
other.  The  Deity  of  philosophic  systems  is  felt  on  all  hands  to  be 
powerless  over  the  licart  of  man  in  the  way  of  alluring  it  to  what 
is  good,  of  deterring  it  from  evil,  or  comforting  it  in.  the  time  of 
trouble.  The  imagination  and  feelings  of  man  never  can  be  attracted 
or  impressed  except  by  a  personal  God,  exhibited  with  living  char- 
acteristics. Such  a  God  can  never  be  represented  to  us  by  general 
description  or  abstract  doctrine,  or  indeed  in  any  other  way  than 
by  a  concrete  picture  of  purposes  designed,  and  deeds  performed 
by  him.  It  is  thus  He  is  brought  before  us  in  nature,  by  powerful 
operations,  by  wise  plans,  by  gracious  gifts.  It  is  thus  He  is  pre- 
sented to  us  in  his  Word  :  not  by  subtle  speculations  and  concat- 
enated ratiocinations,  as  in  philosophic  treatises ;  not  by  abstract 
statement  and  logical  distinctions,  as  in  books  of  divinity  ;  but  by 
a  concrete  representation  of  a  living  and  loving  Being  displaying 
his  nature  by  his  acts.  We  may  go  a  step  further.  The  heart 
seems  to  crave  for,  or  at  least  rejoices  to  hear  of,  a  God  still  more 
closely  allied  to  humanity.  It  is  gratified  to  the  full  in  the  reve- 
lation of  a  God  incarnate  without  being  degraded — "Immanucl, 
God  with  us." 

There  are  some  who  place  the  Divine  Being  so  far  above  tliis 
world  (like  a  star)  that  lie  cannot  be  regarded  as  feeling  any 
interest  in  it ;  wlio  make  him  so  incomprehensible  that  we  cannot 
contemplate,   and   therefore   cannot  love   him.      It   is   supposed   to 


408  METAFHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

be  an  advantage  of  tins  view  tliat  it  gives  us  a  more  elevated 
conception  of  the  Divine  cliaracter,  as  stripping  it  of  all  tlie  imper- 
fections of  our  nature.  But  I  liave  yet  to  learn  tliat  consciousness, 
that  personality  and  will,  that  feeling,  that  love,  that  approbation 
of  moral  good,  are  creature  infirmities.  The  God  who  gave  us  these, 
our  highest  endowments,  has  done  so  in  such  a  way  that  we  are 
constrained  to  look  upon  them  as  transcripts  of  his  own  glorious 
perfections. 

We  can  understand  how  some  should  represent  the  Divinity  of 
the  Bible  as  not  sufficiently  elevated ;  it  arises  from  the  meagre 
and  unsatisfactory  cliaracter  of  their  own  views.  It  is  unworthy, 
they  say,  of  the  Divine  Being,  to  represent  him  as  having  a  plan, 
and  taking  steps  to  execute  it ;  but  it  is  because  they  have  made 
him  a  mere  process  or  principle  of  abstract  reason.  They  object 
to  the  distinctiveness  of  character  attributed  to  God  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, to  his  holy  and  sovereign  love,  but  it  is  because  tliey  have 
sublimed  him  into  metaphysical  essence.  They  denounce  the  very 
language  in  which  He  is  represented  as  pitying  his  creatures :  it  is 
because  they  have  stript  him  of  all  emotion,  and  made  him  cold  as 
a  mathematical  symbol  or  a  logical  formula.  They  wax  wroth  in 
characterizing  the  degradation  involved  in  speaking  of  Him  as  angry 
with  sinners  :  it  is  because  they  have  divested  him  of  all  moral 
sentiment  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  that  he  should  do  good  or 
that  he  should  do  evil. 

II.  But  we  are  not  constrained  by  tlie  principles  which  we 
follow  to  attribute  to  God  every  quality  possessed  by  man.  We 
are  sure  that  our  fellow-men  have  certain  properties  wliich  make 
them  like  ourselves,  but  we  do  not  ascribe  to  them  all  our  personal 
characteristics  ;  we  allot  to  tliem  only  those  of  which  we  discover 
traces  in  their  acts.  In  like  manner,  we  attribute  to  Deity  only 
the  qualities  which  are  manifested  in  his  works,  including  always 
our  intuitions.  It  does  not  follow  because  we  have  a  body  that 
we  should  suppose  our  Maker  to  be  an  organism ;  or  because  we 
have  a  peculiar  pleasurable  sensation  when  we  see  harmonious 
colours,  or  because  we  are  affected  with  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous 
when  we  notice  incongruities,  that  we  should  suppose  God  to  be 
similarly  affected      All  that  we  can  legitimately  infer  is  that  He 


BOOK  n.]  INVOLVED  IX  THEOLOGY.  409 

must  have  had  the  power  and  benevolence  which  led  him  to  impart 
these  qualities  to  us.  The  native  tendency  towards  the  apprehen- 
sion of  the  Perfect  which  points  and  leads  to  God,  forbid  us  to 
ascribe  to  him  anything  that  is  not  high  and  holy. 

The  error  of  anthropomorphism  consists  first  in  attributing  to 
God  all  the  properties  of  man,  including,  it  may  be,  creature  infir- 
mities, sinless  or  sinful :  "  Thou  thoughtest  I  was  altogether  such 
an-one  as  thyself."  We  might  be  inclined  to  think  that  there  can 
be  little  risk  of  persons  falling  into  this  particular  error  in  our 
day ;  but  we  have  the  fact  staring  us  in  the  face  that  the  only 
new  religion  springing  up  in  these  latter  ages  which  has  gained 
the  assent  of  multitudes  is  Morraonism,  according  to  which  Deity 
has  a  liuman  figure,  and  is  of  a  measurable  size.  So  deep  is  the 
tendency  to  bring  God  down  to  our  own  level,  that  professing 
Christians  fall  into  it,  and  are  apt  to  picture  God  as  a  petty  tyrant, 
resenting  personal  neglect,  or  with  a  weak  favouritism  lavishing 
favours  on  those  who  succeed  in  pleasing  him  by  acts  of  will- 
worship. 

There  may  also  be  anthropomorphism  in  supposing  God  to 
be  possessed  of  no  other  qualities  than  those  which  belong  to 
humanity.  All  arc  prepared  to  acknowledge  that  the  attributes 
of  God,  even  when  the  same  in  kind  as  those  possessed  by  man,  are 
infinitely  higher,  in  degree.  But  we  must  be  ready  to  admit  that 
some  of  the  attributes  common  to  the  Creator  and  creature  are  in 
the  former  after  a  mode  or  manner  different  from  what  they  are 
in  the  latter — quite  as  different  as  vital  force  is  from  mechanical. 
Not  only  so,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  God  has  perfections 
differing  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind  from  those  possessed  by 
human  beings — as  different  it  may  be  as  mind  is  from  body.  As 
these  qualities  are  not  in  our  nature,  and  do  not  fall  under  our 
experience,  external  or  internal,  so  we  cannot  so  mucli  as  conceive 
of  them,  and  still  less  can  we  describe  them,  or  suggest  any  intima- 
tion of  their  nature.  We  are  constrained  by  what  we  know  of  God 
to  believe  that  there  is  vastly  more  which  we  do  not  and  cannot 
know,  so  that  we  may  say  with  Heraclitus  that  "  God  wills  and  wills 
not  to  be  known,"  and  with  Scripture,  "  Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest 
thyself."    We  should  ever  join  an  apprehension  of  our  own  incapacity 


410  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES        [part  m. 

with  our  apprehension  of  the  Divine  greatness.  It  will  tend  to 
raise  in  our  minds  a  salutary  awe  ;  and  it  will  prepare  us  to  believe 
that  as  we  cannot  comprehend  His  nature,  so  there  may  be  parts  of 
his  procedure  the  originating  principles  of  which  we  cannot  conceive, 
and  of  which  therefore  we  sliould  judge  in  a  spirit  of  lowliness 
and  of  diffidence.  This  unknown  region  is  no  doubt  the  locus  of 
the  "  things  which  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God,"  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  Divine  nature,  such  as  of  the  relations  of  the  Persons  of 
the  Godhead,  and  of  the  reasons  of  those  actings  which  wo  ascribe 
to  the  Divine  decrees,  whicli  we  regard  as  sovereign,  but  cannot 
allow  to  be  arbitrary.  The  boy  who  knows  only  the  rules  of  the 
father's  outgoings  and  incomings  in  the  family,  does  not  presume 
to  judge  of  the  procedure  determined  by  his  unknown  (to  the 
child)  relations  as  a  merchant  or  statesmen  ;  and  still  less  should 
we  with  the  evidence  of  the  goodness  of  God  in  the  region  known, 
presume  to  utter  opinions  as  to  what  comes  from  the  region 
beyond. 

SECT.  VI.— CHRISTIAN  DIVINITY. 

It  has  been  found  in  all  ages  that  there  are  intimate  points  of 
affinity  between  Metaphysics  (that  is,  our  generalized  institutions) 
and  Theology  (that  is,  the  systematized  expression  of  the  concrete 
and  scattered  truths  of  revelation).  In  the  first  speculations  of 
mankind,  theology  and  philosophy  are  indissolubly  intertwined  in 
what  has  been  called  Thcosophy.  At  a  very  early  age  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  the  Eastern  theosophies  and  certain  forms  of 
Platonism  became  associated  with  Bible  doctrine.  This  arose 
partly  from  the  circumstance  that  a  number  of  eminent  Christian 
Fathers  had,  prior  to  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  been  attached 
to  philosophy,  Asiatic  or  Grecian ;  and  partly,  I  am  convinced,  by 
the  fact  that  there  had  been  wrought,  even  into  tlie  Pagan  philo- 
sophic systems,  a  large  body  of  truth,  either  springing  from  the 
native  convictions  systematized  by  the  inherent  sagacity  of  the 
mind,  or  derived  from  a  tradition  which  had  kept  afloat  a  remnant 
of  primitive  truth.  Platonism,  in  particular,  had  many  interesting 
points  of  correspondence  with  Christianity.  The  lofty  genius  of 
Plato,  nurtured  in  Eastern  as  well  as  Western  learning,  and  drink. 


BOOK  il]  involved  in  THEOLOGY.  411 

iiig-  deeply  of  tlie  moral  spirit  of  Socrates,  had  succeeded  in  seizing 
on  some  of  those  great  natural  truths  which  come  closest  to  In- 
spired Revelation.  In  the  scholastic  ages,  the  logical  forms  of 
Aristotle  were  employed  to  mould  into  a  certain  shape  every 
known  truth  of  religion  (as  well  as  of  secular  knowledge),  and  may 
be  traced  at  this  day  in  not  a  few  distinctions  and  technical  phrases 
of  theology.  In  modern  times,  famous  divines  and  schools  of 
divinity  have  delighted  to  couch  their  expositions  of  doctrine, 
and  their  defences  of  Christianity,  in  accordance  with  the  favourite 
principles,  and  often  in  the  very  nomenclature,  of  particular  philos- 
ophers of  eminence.  The  influence  of  Descartes  is  visible  in  the 
rigid,  dogmatic,  and  deductive  method  of  not  a  few  theological 
treatises  of  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Even  the 
philosophy  of  Locke,  though  possessing  little  aflSnity  to  the  pro- 
founder  truths  of  Christianity,  or  sympathy  with  them,  may  bo 
detected  as  regulatiug  the  defences  of  religion,  and  tlie  manner 
in  which  it  was  recommended  during  last  century, — as  when  it 
is  shown  us  that  experience,  external  or  internal,  is  in  favour  of 
Christianity,  and  that  piety  promotes  the  happiness  of  the  pos- 
sessor. The  speech  of  those  who  talk  much  of  a  moral  sense 
"bewrayeth"  them,  and  shows  that  they  have  taken  their  views 
directly  or  indirectly  from  Shaftesbury  or  Hutcheson.  In  the 
United  States  of  America,  the  metaphysics  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
were  incorporated  for  two  or  three  ages  with  New  England  theol- 
ogy. The  formidable  nomenclature  and  the  bristling  distinctions 
of  Kant,  as  also  the  subtle  and  glowing  intuitionalism  of  Schleier- 
macher  (the  two  being  often  mixed  incongruously  together)  may  be 
traced  in  almost  every  theological  work  published  in  Germany  for 
the  last  half  century,  and  come  out  in  the  writings  of  not  a  few 
Britisli  and  American  divines  who  have  felt  the  impulse  of  tlio 
great  Teutonic  invasion  of  thought.  The  airy  spirit  of  Coleridge 
has  been  caught  by  a  considerable  body  of  English  divines  of  high 
literary  reputation.' 

»  It  would  be  instructive  to  have  a  searching  statement  of  the  metaphysics  vrhich  have 
entered  into  the  theologies  of  various  ages  and  countries.  I  have  furnished  a  small  con- 
tribution to  such  an  undertaking  in  a  paper  on  "  The  Philosophic  Principles  involved  in 
the  Puritan  Theology,"  in  the  Introduction  to  Ckarnock's  Works,  in  Nichol's  Puritan 
Divines. 


412  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

It  may  be  doubted  wlictlier  religion  has  not,  on  the  whole,  been 
injured  to  a  greater  extent  than  it  has  been  benefited  by  its  close 
association  with  philosophy.  The  gnosticism  of  the  East  intro- 
duced the  earliest  formidable  heresies  into  the  Christian  Church, 
and  drew  many  away  from  the  simplicity  of  the  truth  into  mystic 
speculations.  In  the  writings  of  Origen,  and  others  of  a  kindred 
spirit,  the  statements  of  the  Word  were  thought  to  be  of  little 
value  in  their  literal  interpretation,  and  are  sublimated  into  gor- 
geous theories,  constructed  in  a  region  of  gilded  clouds.  No  doubt 
many  of  tliose  who  thus  introduced  tlie  Gentile  philosophy  into 
the  sanctuary  of  Christianity,  imagined  that  they  might  thereby 
benefit  the  religion  of  Jesus ;  but  in  fact  they  corrupted  it — quite 
as  much  as  those  who  with  like  intentions  introduced  Pagan  rites 
into  Christian  worship,  and  Pagan  statues  into  Christian  temples. 
In  the  mediaeval  ages,  the  scholastic  bandages,  when  they  did  not 
positively  strangle  the  vital  truths,  did  yet  set  them  in  so  rigid  a 
shape  as  to  injure  the  life,  and  made  them  repulsive  to  many  souls 
which  might  have  been  attracted  by  the  same  truths  presented  in 
a  so  much  more  rounded  and  flexible  and  altogether  natural  form 
in  the  pages  of  the  living  Word.  The  professed  demonstrations 
and  deductions,  conducted  in  the  mathematical  mode  of  Descartes 
and  Samuel  Clarke,  were  guilty  of  many  a  paralogism,  and  this 
often  tempted  shrewd  men  to  doubt  of  the  whole  system  which 
had  been  supported  by  such  insecure  buttresses.  The  philosophies 
of  Locke  and  of  Hutcheson  could  not  appreciate  one  half  of  the 
great  soul  of  Christianity ;  the  sanctifying  truths  of  revelation 
assumed  a  clipped,  a  bare,  and  a  dry  appearance  in  the  pages  of 
those  whose  appeal  was  to  sense,  and  who  described  happiness 
as  the  greatest  good.  Edwards  had  undoubtedly  a  soul  of  angelic 
brightness  and  depth  of  penetration,  yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
certain  profound  and  mysterious  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  most 
expediently  defended  by  being  identified  with  his  speculations  as 
to  necessity  and  original  sin.  The  theologies  which  have  ramified 
from  the  trunk  of  Kant,  or  sprouted  from  the  germ  of  Schleier- 
macher,  have  laboured  to  move  Christianity  from  the  old  founda- 
tion of  faith  in  the  testimony  of  God,  on  to  a  new  ground  in  the 
Practical  Reason,  or  a  God-consciousness ;   and   the   issue  is  that 


BOOK  n.]  INVOLVED  IX  THEOLOGY.  413 

those  who  have  felt  their  influence  have  been  seeking  to  construct 
each  one  a  religion  for  himself,  retaining  only  so  much  of  revealed 
truth  as  may  please  his  heart  and  fancy  or  suit  his  purpose.  The 
school  of  Coleridge  has  experienced  how  difficult  it  is  to  serve  two 
such  masters  as  religion  and  literature,  and  in  its  airy  excursions 
has  had  a  tendency  to  fly  off  from  some  of  those  truths — sucli  as 
the  Inspiration  of  Scripture  and  the  Atonement  of  Christ — to  which 
unsophisticated  minds  have  ever  clung  most  resolutely  as  feeling 
that  their  soul's  peace  is  involved  in  them. 

Can  no  method  be  devised  of  making  philosophy  and  theology 
cooperate  without  their  being  confounded  ?  In  particular,  is  tliere 
no  way  by  which  religion  may  call  in  philosophy  to  her  aid  in 
fighting  her  battles  against  error,  and  yet  prevent  the  powerful  and 
ambitious  all  from  settling  in  her  country  and  lording  it  over  it? 
The  following  rules  might  at  once  guide  and  guard  religio-philo- 
sophic  speculation : 

I.  Metaphysics  have  important  negative  purposes  to  serve  in 
theology. 

1.  Sound  metaphysics  may  be  employed  to  meet  unsound  meta- 
physics. When  Scriptural  truths  are  assailed  on  professedly  philo- 
sophic grounds,  by  philosophy  may  these  foundations  be  examined. 
Thus  some  object  to  the  Scriptures  that  they  represent  God  as 
cherishing  indignation  against  sin  ;  their  views  may  be  counter- 
acted by  showing  that,  if  we  are  entitled  to  argue  from  our  mental 
nature  that  God  is  a  good  God,  we  are  authorized  on  the  same 
ground  to  look  upon  Him  as  liating  iniquity.  If  it  be  maintained 
that  the  Scripture  doctrines  are  not  to  be  believed  because  they 
land  us  in  speculative  difficulties  and  cannot  be  fully  comprehended, 
philosophy  is  at  hand  to  show  that  the  truths  whicli  are  most  fully 
believed  by  us,  such  as  those  relating  to  being,  cause,  infinity,  to  the 
growth  of  the  plant  and  of  the  animal,  and  even  to  such  agents  as 
heat,  light,  and  electricity,  all  go  out  into  mystery. 

But  in  performing  this  office  of  expulsion,  philosophy  should 
not  be  allowed  to  take  the  place  wliich  had  been  usurped  ])y  tlie 
power  which  it  has  driven  out.  What  I  mean  may  be  illustrated 
thus.  Certain  doctrines  regarding  necessity  and  free-will  have 
found   their  way  into  theology,  and  wrought   not  a  little  mischief. 


414  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES       [part  hi. 

Some  have  given  such  an  account  of  man's  freedom  as  to  make 
him  independent  of  God,  and  to  set  aside  the  Scripture  doctrine  of 
liis  being  enslaved  by  the  influence  of  sin.  At  the  opposite  ex- 
treme, some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  deny  to  man  all  proper  freedom 
of  will,  and  some  have  identified  their  doctrine  of  an  iron  neces- 
sity with  the  Bible  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Sovereignty.  Both  of 
these  extreme  errors  may  be  removed,  as  I  think  by  a  judicious 
exposition  of  the  true  facts  of  human  nature,  by  proving,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  there  is  a  causation  sid  generis  iii  the  human  will, 
and  by  showing,  on  the  other  hand,  that  consciousness  testifies  to 
an  essential  freedom  in  every  genuine  exercise  of  the  voluntary 
power  in  man.  But  when  this  end  has  been  accomplished,  let 
metaphysics  henceforth  retire  into  its  own  territory,  and  let  not 
the  peculiar  views  which  we  may  entertain  in  regard  to  the  will, 
or  the  precise  psychological  nature  of  freedom  be  allowed  to  rule  in 
Divinity  proper,  and  to  overawe  the  honest  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture according  to  exegetical  principles. 

2.  Metaphysics  may  be  preeminently  useful  in  keeping  meta- 
physics in  their  own  place.  For  it  is  the  tendency  of  metaphysics 
to  be  ever  pressing  beyond  their  own  domain,  and  encroaching  on 
their  neighbour's  territory — sometimes  avowedly  and  as  claiming 
a  right,  more  frequently  in  a  covert  manner,  denying  that  they  are 
metaphysics,  to  which  they  may  even  profess  an  apathy; — but 
under  whatever  pretext  they  come,  if  they  propose  to  settle  in 
theology,  they  must  be  driven  out  as  intruders.  Metaphysics  have 
a  very  important  province — not  all  truths,  but  first  truths — and  to 
that  province  they  must  be  confined.  No  one  will  now  tolerate  for 
a  moment  any  claims  which  they  may  put  forth  to  construct  a 
natural  philosophy,  a  botany,  or  a  chemistry.  A  primary  philos- 
ophy may  do  some  little  in  the  way  of  settling  fast  the  founda- 
tion of  these  sciences,  but  they  must  be  built  up  by  materials  got 
from  other  quarters.  And  just  as  little  is  it  capable  of  rearing  a 
theology,  and  determining  every  question  which  may  be  started  as 
to  God  and  man  and  nature,  and  their  reticulated  mutual  relatione 
History,  the  history  of  all  ages  and  countries,  gives  a  testimony  as 
decided  as  it  is  uniform,  that  human  reason  is  incapable  of  forming 
a  reliffion  which  can   stand  tlie  tests  of  reason  and  meet  the  felt 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  415 

wants  of  man.  He  who  would  construct  a  physical  science  must 
go  to  the  Yolume  of  nature ;  he  who  would  construct  a  theology- 
must  resort  to  the  volume  of  revelation.  It  is  no  disparagement 
to  metaphysical  science  that  it  cannot  do  what  it  is  the  province  of 
other  sciences  to  accomplish.  It  is  no  disparagement  to  geometry 
that  it  cannot  draw  out  a  system  of  anatomy,  nor  in  any  way  to 
the  discredit  of  chemistry  that  it  cannot  build  up  a  science  of 
political  economy.  Nor  is  it  any  degradation  to  speculative  pliilos- 
opliy  that  it  cannot  rear  a  science  of  Divinity.  Each  science,  like 
a  planet,  has  its  own  orbit,  and  when  it  keeps  to  this  it  has  good 
purposes  to  serve  ;  but  if  it  passes  beyond,  it  will  fail  to  accomplish 
its  proper  ends,  and  may  come  into  destructive  collision  with  other 
powers,  "We  do  not  enlarge  the  sciences,"  says  Kant,  "but  dis- 
figure them,  when  we  suffer  their  boundaries  to  run  into  one  an- 
other." He  who  Tifould  seek  for  a  quickening  religion  among  the 
maxims  of  philosophy,  is,  as  Bacon  says,  seeking  the  living  among 
the  dead,  and  must  ever  come  back  with  an  aching  heart  and  a 
feeling  of  disappointment.  A  wise  metaphysics,  which  knows  its 
own  place,  which  is  the  place  of  principles,  will  find  it  to  be  for 
its  interest — indeed  absolutely  essential  to  the  preservation  of  its 
influence,  and  the  protection  of  its  own  territory,  in  the  present  day, 
when  it  has  so  many  enemies— to  rebuke  every  attempt  which  may 
be  made  by  its  less  prudent  but  more  ardent  supporters  to  make 
it  intrude  into  the  province  of  other  sciences. 

II.  Metaphysics,  without  entering  Theology,  may  lend  it  some 
aid. 

1.  It  may  show  that  the  difficulties  and  mysteries  which  meet 
us  in  theology  are  the  same  as  those  which  come  up  in  meta- 
physics, being  those  which  arise  from  the  limitation  of  our  faculties 
and  the  imperfection  of  our  knowledge.  "No  difficulty,"  says  Sir 
W.  Hamilton,  "emerges  in  theology,  which  has  not  previously 
emerged  in  philosophy."  The  difficulties  of  Revealed  Religion 
chiefly  congregate  round  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  of  the 
Decrees  of  God,  and  Original  Sin.  The  difficulties  of  the  first 
arise  simply  from  the  mystery  which  attaches  to  this,  but  also  to 
every  otlicr  doctrine  regarding  the  Divine  Nature  ;  we  can  under- 
stand so  mucli,  but   learn  of  vastly  more,  beyond   our  comprehen- 


416  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [paet  in. 

sion.  Those  wlio  would  doubt  of  the  triune  nature  of  God  because 
they  cannot  fully  compass  it,  will  find  themselves  landed  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  difficulties  when  they  would  fathom  the  infinity, 
or  indeed  any  of  the  perfections  of  God.  The  difficulties  which 
spring  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Sovereignty  are  no  other 
than  the  old  ones  which  philosophers  have  met  with  from  the 
beginning,  as  they  sought  to  reconcile  freedom  with  causation. 
The  doctrine  of  Original  Sin  does  raise  up  difficulties,  and  may 
seem  to  bear  hard  against  the  character  of  the  Creator ;  but  an 
analogous  insoluble  problem  presents  itself  in  Natural  Religion : 
How  has  sin  been  permitted  under  the  government  of  a  God  at 
once  Omnipotent  and  Good?  Nay,  it  is  the  very  same  difficulty 
which  presses  on  us  when  we  ask  the  question.  How  does  it  happen 
that  all  human  beings,  left  though  they  be  to  the  freedom  of  their 
own  will,  do  in  fact  begin  to  sin  as  soon  as  tilf^y  begin  to  act  for 
themselves  ?  He  who  would  answer  this  question,  and  not  avoid  it, 
must  come  to  an  original  sin,  encompassed  with  all  the  difficulties 
of  the  Bible  doctrine ;  but  if  he  discard  Christianity,  he  lias  no 
relief  from  the  evil,  he  has  no  liglit  to  set  over  against  the  darkness. 
Metaphysics  are  competent  to  demonstrate  that  no  man  can  deliver 
himself  from  the  difficulties  by  fleeing  from  Christianity  to  what  may 
be  represented  as  a  Rational  Theism. 

2.  Metaphysics  may  furnish  not  a  few  evidences  in  favour  of 
Cliristianity.  Thus  it  supplies  the  main  elements  in  the  proof  of 
those  great  doctrines  which  the  Word  of  God  presupposes,  such  as 
the  existence  of  the  infinity  and  unity  of  God,  a.nd  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  and  a  judgment-day — truths  very  much  perverted  in 
heathenism,  and  the  prominence  given  to  which  in  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  is  a  proof  of  tlieir  being  divinely  inspired.  All  works 
of  Natural  Theology,  properly  constructed,  haye  a  tendency  to 
strengthen  the  foundations  of  Christianity.  In  particular,  the 
inductive  investigation  of  the  moral  faculty  in  man  may  yield  a 
number  of  evidences  in  favour  of  the  Divine  origin  of  our  religion. 
The  conscience  declares  that  there  is  an  indelible  distinction 
between  good  and  evil,  and  conducts  by  an  easy  process  to  the  con- 
viction, that  God  approves  the  good  and  hates  the  evil.  Tho 
moral  power  points  to  a  law,  holy,  just,  and  good,  a  law  which  all 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  417 

men  have  broken,  and  wliicli  no  nation  slmt  out  from  supernatural 
liglit,  and  no  Pagan  philosophy,  have  ever  exhibited  in  its  purity. 
When  that  law  shines  forth  in  the  Word,  and  when,  in  particular, 
it  is  manifested  in  tlie  character  of  the  God  Man,  the  conclusion 
is  forced  on  us  that  those  who  make  it  thus  shine  upon  us  in  its 
brightness,  must  ha,ve  conversed  with  God.  The  conscience, 
rightly  interpreted,  declares  that  all  men  have  sinned,  and  so  given 
offence  to  God.  The  same  moral  power  indicates,  not  obscurely, 
that  sin  deserves  to  be  punished,  and  points  to  God  as  ready  to 
inflict  the  penalty.  Great  service,  as  it  appears  to  me,  is  rendered 
to  Christianity,  when  it  is  shown,  by  means  of  an  inquiry  into  the 
nature  of  conscience,  that  these  are  truths  of  natural  religion.  For, 
being  once  established  on  an  independent  basis,  they  prepare  us 
to  welcome  the  grand  doctrine  of  Revealed  Religion,  that  the  Word 
has  become  flesh,  and  tabernacled  on  the  earth,  suffering  in  the 
sinner's  room  and  stead,  and  thus  opening  a  way  by  which  sinful 
men  may  be  restored  to  the  favour  and  image  of  a  sin-hating  God. 
Yerily  those  rationalists  or  intuitionalists  who  would  set  aside  or 
explain  away  the  doctrine  of  the  sinner  being  reconciled  by  the 
blood  of  Jesus,  are  overlooking  wlmt  is  about  the  deepest  and 
strongest  conviction  of  moral  reason  or  intuition  in  the  breast  of 
man.  In  these,  and  in  a  variety  of  other  ways,  illustrated  by  such 
writers  as  Pascal,  Butler,  and  Chalmers,^  a  sound  philosophy  may 
show  us  light  shining  through  chinks  upon  us  in  the  darkness,  to 
allure  us  to  look  out  for  the  great  luminary  which  God  has  made 
to  shine  upon  our  world. 

3.  Metaphysics  can  give  a  philosophic  method  and  manner  to 
the  treatment  of  theological  topics.  It  may  do  so  without  intrud- 
ing beyond  its  province,  or  introducing  any  of  its  peculiarities.  It 
may  appear  in  its  mode  and  in  the  results,  without  troubling  us 
with  all  the  processes.  How  often  does  it  happen,  in  theological 
discussions,  that  there  are  laboured  attempts  to  prove  what  need 
not  or  cannot  be  proven,  while  other  propositions,  which  ought  to 
be  demonstrated,  are  left  unsupported !  How  often  are  derivative 
propositions  left  without   a   support,  while  primary  principles   are 

I  The  intimations  of  conscience  were  long  neglected  in  the  philosophies  and  speculative 
theologies  of  Gernnany,  which  in  this  respect  were  behind  those  of  Britain.  A  better  tone 
was  commenced  by  Julius  Muller,  in  his  great  woik  on  Sin. 

27 


418  METAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

made  to  lean  on  secondary  ones !  A  mind  trained  to  philosophy 
will  avoid  these  errors ;  as  knowing  what  propositions  require  not 
probation,  and  how  to  make  such  shine  in  their  own  light,  and 
generally,  how  to  build  up  an  argument  of  original  and  derived 
truth  consecutively  from  the  foundation. 

But  are  metaphysics  to  be  absolutely  precluded  from  entering 
the  domain  of  divinity  proper?  If  a  philosophic  thought  occur  to 
a  youth  in  the  freshness  of  his  observation,  or  to  an  old  man  in  the 
ripeness  of  his  wisdom,  is  he  not  to  be  allowed  to  bring  it  into  the 
temple,  and  lay  it  on  the  altar,  because  these  are  too  sacred?  In 
repl}' ,  I  observe  that — 

III.  Metaphysics  are  to  be  allowed  to  enter  theology  only  under 
certain  conditions. 

1.  The  metaphysical  principle  advanced  must  be  shown  to  be 
sanctioned  by  the  very  constitution  of  the  mind,  and  by  Him  who 
has  granted  it  to  us.  It  is  thus  only  that  we  can  lay  an  arrest  on 
fancy,  on  conceit,  and  prejudice,  and  prevent  persons,  when  pushed 
hard  for  a  defence,  from  taking  refuge  in  a  principle  whicli  they 
declare  to  be  above  argument.  There  are  truths  above  probation, 
but  there  are  no  truths  above  examination,  and  the  truths  above 
proof  are  those  which  bear  inspection  the  best.  If  persons  appeal 
to  first  principles,  avowedly  or  nnavowedly,  the  burden  lies  on 
them  of  showing  that  the  principles  they  employ  are  first  truths. 
Those  who  adopt  this  rule  for  themselves  are  entitled  to  insist  that 
those  who  oppose  them,  or  oppose  religion,  should  submit  to  the 
same  restrictions.  It  may  cei-tainly  be  demanded  of  those  who 
set  themselves  against  Christianity,  or  any  of  its  peculiar  doctrines, 
on  professedly  pliilosophic  grounds,  that  they  show  that  their 
objections  are  founded  on  principles  which  are  fundamental  and 
catholic,  and  not  drawn  from  the  prejudices  of  the  heart,  or  the  pet 
opinions  of  some  small  knot  of  thinkers. 

2.  The  precise  nature  of  the  fundamental  principle  employed 
must  be  specified,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  brought  to  bear  on  the 
topic  discussed.  For  it  is  quite  possilile  that  the  principle,  though 
in  itself  a  legitimate  one,  may  be  illegitimately  employed,  and  how 
can  this  be  ascertained  except  by  a  precise  enunciation  of  its  rule  ? 
Thus,  I  believe  that  there  is  a  principle  of  causation  operating  in 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  419 

all  creature  action,  even,  I  believe,  in  acts  of  tlie  will ;  but  then 
it  would  be  wrong  to  infer  from  this  that  the  mode  of  causal 
action  is  the  same  in  our  voluntary  as  in  physical  nature,  or  even 
as  in  intellectual  operation.  Yet,  again  and  again  have  writers 
maintained  that  man  must  be  a  machine,  because  the  principle  of 
causation  is  universally  operative,  even  in  the  will,  as  is  shown 
by  jDredictious  founded  on  statistics  which  can  be  given  forth  as 
to  crimes  and  other  voluntary  acts.  The  fallacy  at  once  appears 
when  we  properly  interpret  the  principle  of  causation,  which 
announces  indeed  that  every  event  has  a  cause,  but  leaves  the 
nature  of  that  cause  to  be  determined  by  experience,  which  shows 
that  causation  in  the  will  is  entirely  different  from  causation  in 
other  agents.  Some  go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  insist  that  the 
possession  of  freedom  by  man  is  inconsistent  with  the  universal 
reign  of  causation.  This  misapprehension  may  be  removed  by  a 
correct  exposition  of  the  intuitive  principle  of  freedom,  which 
affirms  indeed  of  every  action  of  the  will  that  it  is  free,  but  says 
nothing,  and  can  say  nothing,  as  to  whether  it  is  or  is  not  caused. 
These  are  illustrations  of  the  way  in  which  a  philosophic  principle, 
sound  in  itself,  may  -issue  in  illegitimate  consequences  because  its 
rule  has  not  been  ascertained. 

I  have  so  far  limited  tlie  rule  as  to  say  that  the  intuitive  prin- 
ciple employed  must  be  precisely  enunciated,  so  far  at  least  as  it 
is  brought  to  bear  on  the  topic  we  are  discussing.  This  is  all  that 
can  be  legitimately  insisted  on.  Every  time  that  we  argue  that  an 
effect  has  a  cause,  or  that  a  quality  implies  a  substance,  we  may  not 
be  bound  rigidly  to  announce  the  formula.  But  in  all  perplexing 
questions  and  doubtful  references,  the  law  must  be  given  in  express 
terms,  for  it  is  quite  possible  that  it  may  not  admit  of  a  legitimate 
application  to  the  case  before  us.  Fortunately  the  questions  in 
which  such  rigid  accuracy  requires  to  be  insisted  on  are  compara- 
tively few.  Unfortunately  for  the  theologian  it  so  happens  that 
among  these  are  the  very  questions  which  fall  to  be  discussed  in 
deeper  divinity.  The  rule  is  that  the  principle  must  be  correctly 
expressed  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  topic  to  which  it  is  applied,  and 
if  it  is  possible  that  a  partial  expression  may  be  an  inaccurate  one, 
there  is  no  help  for  it,  the  law  must  be  fully  and  rigidly  unfolded. 


420  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

But  it  will  be  urged  that  such  a  caution  must  often  necessitate 
the  inappropriate  discussion  of  a  metaphysical  question  in  the 
midst  of  a  theological  exposition.  I  admit  that  this  shows  tliat 
the  introduction  of  metaphysics  into  theology  has  its  difficulties 
and  inconveniences.  Nothing  can  be  more  unsatisfactory  tlian  the 
practice  of  many  theologians,  who  lay  hold,  witliout  examination, 
of  a  supposed  philosopliic  principle  which  serves  their  end,  use  it 
to  help  their  immediate  purpose  and  then  pass  on  to  another 
topic,  which  is  treated  in  tlie  same  unsatisfactory  manner.  All 
ingenious  minds  feel  this  method  to  be  most  confusing  and  un- 
comfortable ;  even  the  professed  metaphysician  will  often  be 
stirred  up  to  oppose  it,  as  the  metaphysics  may  not  be  his  own. 
If  metaphysics  are  to  venture  into  the  theological  field,  let  them 
come  in  openly  and  not  furtively,  and  let  them  conform  to  tlic 
rules  of  the  logic  of  intuition.  And  if  the  investigation  thus 
necessitated  cannot  come  in  gracefully  in  the  heart  of  a  Scriptural 
exposition  let  them  be  handed  over  to  an  appendix,  or  appear  in  a 
separate  treatise,  the  merits  of  which  will  be  more  readily  ascer- 
tained from  the  circumstance  that  the  philosophical  stands  out 
separate  from  the  religious  element.     This  leads  to  another  rule. 

3.  There  must  be  a  careful  separation  of  the  Scriptural  trutli 
from  the  supposed  metaphysical  principle  employed  to  illustrate 
or  defend  it.  The  great  body  of  practical  thinkers,  especially  in 
England  have  ever  entertained,  and  this  not  without  grounds  to 
go  on,  a  suspicion  of  metaphysical  theology.  In  the  exposition  of 
the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  not  only  in  sermons,  but  in  practical 
divinity,  the  introduction  of  metaphysical  discussions  may  be  de- 
clined with  great  wisdom,  except  when  the  speculative  objections 
of  opponents  necessitate  it.  The  great  body,  even  of  thinking 
men,  will  be  vastly  more  pleased,  and  in  a  still  higher  degree 
more  profited,  by  clear  statement  and  spontaneous  reasoning,  than 
by  abstruse  discussions.  A  calm  reverence  for  Scripture,  a  careful 
I  collation  of  passages,  an  enlarged  acquaintance  with  the  whole 
I  volume,  sound  sense,  clear  statement,  direct  argument,  in  whicli 
'  there  is  but  a  link  or  two  between  the  first  premiss  and  the  final 
conclusion,  a  knowledge  of  human  character  in  its  practical  opera- 
tions, and,  above  all,  genuine  faith,  an  attachment  to  the  truth,  and 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  421 

love  to  God  and  man,  will  do  vastly  more  than  metaphysical  subtlety 
or  lengthened  deduction,  in  explaining,  enforcing,  and  defending 
Divine  truth. 

But  are  metaphysics  therefore  to  be  absolutely  banished  from 
tlieology  ?  I  lay  down  no  such  stringent  rule ;  tlie  very  objections 
of  the  heretic  and  the  rationalist,  and  the  cavils  of  the  infidel  and 
the  scoffer,  compel  divines,  whether  they  will  or  no,  to  enter  the 
regions  of  metaphysics.  The  God  who  gives  to  all  men  their  gifts, 
is  to  be  praised  because  he  has  raised  up  from  time  to  time  persons 
of  great  intellectual  stature,  who  have  defended  the  grand  essential 
doctrines  of  Christianity  in  learned  and  elaborate  philosophical 
treatises.  Philosophy  should  acknowledge  that  some  of  the  works 
of  which  she  has  most  cause  to  be  proud  were  constructed  with 
the  avowed  design  of  deepening  the  foundations  or  strengthening 
the  fortresses  of  religion. 

But  in  professedly  theological  works  there  should  be  a  studious 
distinction  drawn  between  the  philosophy  and  the  religion.  This 
is  needful,  in  order  that  we  may  satisfactorily  examine  both,  and 
be  able,  on  the  one  hand,  to  determine  whether  the  author  has  laid 
hold  of  a  correct  metaphysical  principle,  and  been  legitimately  ap- 
plying it;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  view  the  religious  doctrine 
apart  from  the  philosophic  speculation.  The  caution  now  enforced 
will  not  forbid  philosophy  from  attempting  to  aid  religion,  to 
furnish  to  it  evidences,  to  confirm  its  doctrines,  and  systematize  its 
scattered  truths  :  but  it  will  secure  that  the  two  be  not  confounded  ; 
in  particular,  that  philosophy  do  not  represent  itself  as  religion 
but  as  metaphysics  ;  that  it  do  not  claim  for  its  speculations  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  or  of  God,  or  advance  them  as  an  essential 
part  of  religion,  or  place  them  on  the  same  level  as  the  truths  of 
the  Divine  Word  ;  and,  above  all,  that  it  do  not  make  religion  lean 
upon  them,  so  that,  if  they  should  break  down,  religion  would  be 
supposed  to  be  in  danger  of  falling  with  tliem. 

The  rule  laid  down  demands  that  the  two  bo  seen  to  be  different. 
Not  that  it  should  insist  that  tliey  bo  discussed  in  separate  treatises, 
or  each  in  distinct  chapters  of  one  treatise  ;  this  might  look  too 
like  that  formal  accuracy  of  demeanour  and  character  whicli  often 
conceals  the  worst  improprieties.     But  it  rigidly  exacts   that  the 


422  METAPHYSICAL  PBINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

two  be  distinguislied  in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  and  tliat  the  dis- 
cussion be  conducted  so  that  the  difference  cannot  be  lost  sight 
of  by  tlic  most  careless  reader ;  so  tliat  tlie  pliilosophy  may  be 
recognized  simply  as  philosoph}',  and  the  religion  be  seen  to  be 
independent  of  the  philosophy  ;  and  so  that,  should  the  p]iilosoi)hy 
be  set  aside  by  new  systems,  the  religion  may  remain  entire  and 
uninjured.  Bishop  Butler,  I  may  remark,  has  set  a  noble  example 
in  this  respect  both  in  his  Analogy  and  in  his  Sermons:  his  phi- 
losophy, wlietlier  employed  in  illustration  or  defence,  is  always  so 
brought  forward  that  it  can  never  be  confounded  witli  the  religious 
truth,  which  it  is  meant  to  aid,  and  never  to  injure.  As  neigh- 
bours, the  two  may  have  much  pleasant  and  profitable  communion, 
and  many  interchanges  of  good  offices ;  but  still,  they  should  keep 
their  separate  domiciles ;  without  this  there  will  sooner  or  later 
be  misunderstandings,  jarring,  and  disputes,  and  in  the  end  suspi- 
cions and  cruel  separations. 

These  restrictions,  I  am  aware,  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  many 
a  tree  which  those  who  planted  it  will  be  unwilling  to  see  cut 
down  ;  but  they  are  necessary  to  the  clearing  of  a  dreadfully  inter- 
tangled  forest,  and  to  allow  the  trees  which  are  entitled  to  remain 
to  have  free  breatlung-space,  and  tlms  attain  their  full  growth,  and 
stand  out  in  their  proper  form. 

SECT.  VII.— MAN  AS  A   RELIGIOUS   BEING. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  man  is  certainly  not  a  religious  being. 
He  is  inclined  to  avoid  God,  and  to  live  unmindful  of  Him  ;  and 
when  constrained  to  look  at  His  purity,  his  eyes  are  so  dazzled 
that  he  pays  Him  a  blinded  and  superstitious  prostration.  When 
left  to  himself,  he  has  ever  been  degrading  the  Divine  nature  and 
character,  and  whether  blessed  or  not  with  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion, he  has  ever  been  breaking  the  commandments  of  God.  But 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  man  is  a  religious  being.  All  nations 
have  had  a  religion  of  some  kind,  and  the  number  of  professed  dis- 
believers in  God  is  so  small,  that  some  have  doubted  whether  tliere 
has  ever  been  such  a  monster  as  a  sincere  atheist.  The  Psalmist 
seems  to  give  the  true  account,  when  he  describes  the  fool  as  say- 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  423 

ing  ill  his  heart,  "  There  is  no  God."  There  are  intuitions,  processes 
of  thought,  natural  observations,  and  deep  feelings,  which  all  tend, 
even  when  restrained  and  degraded,  towards  a  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  a  Supernatural  Being,  to  a  faith  in  Him  or  a  fear  of 
Him,  to  adoration,  and  a  sense  of  responsibility.  Every  deeper 
intuition  of  the  soul  goes  out  towards  God.  Created  being,  as  we 
follow  it  down,  is  felt  to  be  fixed  and  permanent  only  in  uncreated 
being.  The  objects  around  us  are  felt  to  be  so  fleeting  that  our 
conviction  of  reality  is  satisfied  only  when  we  reach  self-existent 
substance.  Our  conviction  of  substance  is  not  content  till  it 
comes  to  One  who  has  all  power  in  Himself.  Infinite  time  and 
space  are  felt,  after  all,  to  be  only  infinite  emptiness,  till  wo  fill 
them  with  a  living  and  loving  Being.  All  the  beautiful  rela- 
tionships in  nature,  all  the  order  in  respect  of  form,  time  and 
quantity,  all  the  adaptations  of  means  to  end,  seem  but  the  rays 
scattered  from  an  original  and  central  wisdom.  The  impulse 
which  prompts  us  to  search  after  causes  will  not  cease  its  cravings 
till  it  carries  us  up  to  a  first  cause  in  a  self-acting  substance. 
Earthly  beauty  is  so  evanescent  that  we  rejoice  to  learn  that  there 
is  a  Divine  beauty  of  which  the  other  is  but  a  flickering  reflection. 
Especially  do  our  moral  convictions  mount  towards  G-od  as  their 
proper  sphere,  their  source,  and  their  home.  Our  sense  of  obliga- 
tion connects  us  by  stronger  than  physical  bonds  with  Him  wiio  is 
the  Author  of  our  moral  nature,  the  Sanctioncr  of  the  moral  law, 
and  who  is  at  last  to  be  our  Judge.  I  do  not  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  any  one  of  these  does  of  itself  prove  the  Divine  existence.  I 
do  not  even  affirm  that  all  of  them  together  would  enable  us  to 
construct  a  logical  argument  in  behalf  of  the  being  of  God.  These 
intuitions  are  expected  to  look  to  certain  very  obvious  facts  press- 
ing tliemsolves  on  the  attention  of  all ;  but  I  maintain  that,  being 
thus  evoked  and  supported,  they  do  lead  to  certain  deep  feelings 
and  impressions  in  the  minds  of  all,  and  to  a  most  reasonable 
belief  in  God.  Every  one  of  tlicm,  like  tlie  plant,  is  sending  down 
roots  towards  this  ground,  is  shooting  out  points  towards  tliis 
light.  We  feel  that  this  world  has  no  stability  till  wo  make  it 
rest  on  God.  In  particular,  Ave  feel  as  to  ourselves  that  we  are  in 
a  state  of  dependence  :  as  having  derived  our  being  from  anotlier  ; 


424  METAniYSICAL  rRlNClPLES       [part  iii. 

as  needing  a  supply  for  our  ever-craving  wants  ;  as  having  our 
destiny  swayed  by  events  arranged  witliout  consulting  us  ;  as 
being  ever  under  an  eye  tliat  inspects  us  ;  and  as  having  at  last 
to  appear  at  a  judgment-scat — and  we  cannot  be  satisfied  till  we 
learn  thai  wo  hang  on  a  Great  Central  Power  and  Ligiit,  round 
which  we  should  revolve,  as  the  earth  does  round  the  sun. 

These  convictions,  and  the  feelings  growing  on  them,  are  deep 
down  in  the  bosoms  of  all  ;  and  like  waters  which  have  descended 
from  the  heavens  and  penetrated  into  the  hills,  they  will  ever  tend 
to  burst  out,  and  if  restrained  in  their  legitimate  clianneL-,  they 
will  find  vent  in  others.  Ever  craving  for  something,  there  will  be 
pain  and  uneasiness  till  tlio  appropriate  object  is  presented.  But 
as  the  appetite  of  hunger  in  its  eagerness  may  lead  us  to  grasp  at 
a  sad  mixture  of  food  and  earth,  nay  of  food  and  poison  when  it  is 
presented,  so  our  natural  religious  faitlis  may  often  be  taken  in 
with  a  sad  medley  of  truth  and  error,  of  earnest  godliness  and  de- 
basing superstition.  Still,  while  they  eagerly  devour  such,  they 
will  not  be  satisfied  therewith,  but  feeling  restless  and  troubled, 
they  will  still  crave  for  something,  they  know  not  what,  and  cry 
for  a  remedy  to  their  experienced  ills. 

It  follows,  from  this  account  that  these  instincts  and  sentiments 
may  be  perverted  and  abused.  Man  is  invited,  not  compelled,  to 
be  religious.  True  piety  is  always  a  holy  act,  to  which  there  is 
the  consent  of  the  will.  Man,  if  he  is  bent  upon  it,  may  become 
unbelieving  or  superstitious.  As  having  committed  sin,  he  will 
ever  be  prompted,  like  Cain,  to  go  out  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,  and  to  strain  after  a  forgetfulness  of  Him.  Or,  as  oppressed 
with  a  secret  consciousness  of  sin,  and  as  unable  to  look  on  the 
holiness  of  God,  he  will  ever  be  tempted  to  form  a  god  to  his  own 
taste,  and  who  may  not  dazzle  and  blind  him  by  the  brightness 
of  his  purity.  The  majority  of  mankind  flit  between  these  two 
states ;  between  a  stubborn  forgetfulness  of  God  and  desire  to  be 
independent  of  Him,  and  a  superstitious  prostration  before  a  god, 
or  more  frequently  gods,  fashioned  by  them  according  to  the  crude 
cravings  and  cherished  wishes  of  their  hearts. 

But  in  this  state  of  half-conscious  sin  there  is  a  powerful  intui- 
tion awakened,  which,  though  to  a  large  extent  blind,  and  to  some 


BOOK  II.]  INVOL  VED  IN  THEOL  OGY.  425 

extent  incapable  of  hearing,  will  at  times  cry  terribly  for  its  ob- 
ject. The  longing  may  be  indefinite — "  an  infant  crying  in  the 
night"  when  its  mother  is  gone,  because  it  wants  it  knows  not 
what ;  the  want  is  positive,  the  object  cried  for  is  unknown,  but 
there  is  a  terrible  cry  for  it  when  at  any  time  it  awakes.  There 
will  rise  up  a  conscience  of  guilt,  and  an  apprehension  of  an  un- 
known danger,  like  the  sullen  roar  of  ocean  waves  evidently  at 
hand,  but  not  seen  in  a  murky  and  stormy  night ;  and  this  will 
be  followed  by  an  anxious,  though  possibly  very  ignorant  and  per- 
plexed looking  round  for  a  way  of  escape.  While  men  are  en- 
grossed with  tlie  cares  and  gratifications,  with  tlie  climbings  and 
descents  of  this  world,  these  apprehensions  may,  to  a  large  extent, 
be  suppressed  ;  still  they  are  there  deep  down  in  the  heart,  and  at 
times  they  will  breathe  out  in  yearnings  after  some  help,  to  come 
we  know  not  whence,  or  burst  forth  in  dreadful  cries  and  alarms  ; 
or  if  these  natural  outlets  be  closed  by  a  cherished  unbelief,  it  will 
only  be  to  make  the  restrained  feelings  spread  like  a  disease,  and 
burn  like  an  internal  fire.  It  is  this  sentiment  which  keeps  alive 
a  sense  of  sin  and  a  fear  of  God  and  of  a  judgment-day  among  all 
nations,  and  which  so  far  prepares  tlie  Heathen  to  listen  to  the 
tidings  of  a  provided  Saviour.  But  this  instinct  may  likewise  be 
misled,  because  of  its  blindness,  and  may  be  directed  to  objects 
which  seem  fitted  to  gratify  it,  but  which  in  the  end  disappoint  it. 
It  may  tempt  the  man  who  is  moved  by  it  to  picture  God  as  a 
vindictive  Being,  or  it  may  prompt  to  acts  of  laceration,  supposed 
to  be  fitted  to  appease  the  Divine  anger.  But  the  anxious  spirit, 
even  after  the  most  horrid  and  excruciating  acts  have  been  per- 
formed, will  not  be  satisfied,  for  it  will  still  be  in  doubt  whether, 
after  all,  that  terrible  Divinity  be  pacified.  These  cravings  will 
always  make  us  feel  that  there  is  nothing  to  meet  them  in  a 
deistic  or  rationalistic  creed,  and  tliat  tliere  is  nothing  to  give  them 
peace  in  Pagan  ritual  and  sacrifices.  I  believe  they  can  be  met, 
and  gratified,  and  brought  to  peace  and  composure  only  Ijy  tlio 
view,  presented  in  the  Word,  of  God  reconciling  man  to  Himself 
by  the  blood  of  His  Son. 


426  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES        [part  hi. 


SECT.  VIII.-RATIONAL  THEOLOGY. 


Attempts  have  often  been  made,  by  persons  professing  a  great 
respect  for  Christianity,  to  construct  a  religious  creed  by  liuman 
reason ;  sometimes  using  "  reason"  in  the  larger  and  looser  sense, 
to  stand  for  all  the  intellectual  powers,  together  with  the  moral 
faculty,  and  sometimes  confining  it  to  tlic  mere  logical  understand- 
ing. It  is  not  proposed  to  discard  the  Bible,  but  to  found  the 
doctrines  believed  in  on  a  rational  basis  ;  and  most  commonly  all 
tenets  are  rejected,  or  at  least  omitted,  which  cannot  be  thus  sup- 
ported. In  this  country,  this  theology  usually  borrowed  largely 
from  Locke,  and  appealed  much  to  experience  and  man's  desire  to 
secure  happiness.  In  Germany  it  proceeded  on  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  critical  philosophy  of  Kant,  and  especially  on 
certain  a  iwiori  notions  of  the  sufficiency  of  virtue.  Its  oversights 
are  many  and  glaring. 

1.  While  professing  to  appeal  to  human  nature,  it  has  commonly 
overlooked  some  of  the  very  deepest  intuitions  and  the  most  char- 
acteristic feelings  of  the  soul,  such  as  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  terror 
of  a  sin-hating  and  sin-punishing  God.  These  have  been  studiously 
omitted,  because  they  are  palpably  and  uncompromisingly  opposed 
to  the  "self-righteous,  self-sufficient  spirit  which  the  builders  of  the 
system  wish  to  be  allowed  to  cherish. 

2.  There  have  been  not  a  few  flaws  and  gaps  in  the  structures 
reared.  These  liave  proceeded  from  the  determined  purpose  of  the 
builders  to  erect  a  system  of  theology  without  accepting  aid  from 
Divine  authority.  They  have  been  triumphantly  pointed  out  with  a 
sneer  by  the  sceptic,  who  shows  that  objections  can  be  taken  to  many 
of  the  pretended  demonstrations  of  religious  truths,  as,  for  example, 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  tlie  body,  and  all  that  depends 
on  that  doctrine  in  regard  to  the  world  to  come.  By  all  means  let 
the  analogies  and  illustrations  which  may  be  drawn  from  nature  in 
favour  of  such  doctrines  be  urged,  but  the  truths  rest,  after  all, 
most  securely  on  the  authority  of  God.  The  rational  theology, 
which  would  move  them  from  this  foundation,  is  in  every  respect 
most  irrational. 

3.  It  errs  most  egregiously  in  casting  aside  the  truths  of  the 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  427 

Word,  which  are  most  suited  to  tlie  deeper  wants  of  man,  such  as 
those  which  tell  us  of  reconciliation  through  the  Sou  of  God,  of 
the  work  of  converting  grace,  and  of  restoration  to  communion 
with  God.  These  doctrines  cannot  be  discovered  by  human  reason 
in  its  highest  or  deepest  researches,  yet  they  are  the  truths  which, 
when  revealed,  commend  themselves  most  forcibly  and  impressively 
to  the  heart  of  man. 

4.  It  has  been  powerless  in  calling  forth  deep  feeling,  in  rousing 
the  soul  to  enthusiasm  and  devotedness,  or  in  urging  it  on  to  deeds 
of  heroism  and  self-sacrifice.  The  heart  of  man,  especially  at  those 
times  when  it  is  awed  by  a  sense  of  the  Divine  majesty  and  purity, 
or  struck  with  a  sense  of  its  own  sinfulness,  or  elevated  by  aspira- 
tions after  a  holier  state,  has  ever  turned  away  from  it  with  abhor- 
rence and  scorn. 


SECT.   IX.— INTUITIONAL  THEOLOGY. 

The  icy  and  rigid  rationalism  of  the  last  age  has  dissolved  in  the 
heat  of  a  warmer  season,  and  of  late  we  have  had  a  time  of  wading 
deep  in  melted  matter  ;  and  now  we  are  in  an  atmosphere  of 
sultriness  and  dimness,  of  haziness  and  dreaminess.  It  is  uni- 
versally acknowledged  that  the  logical  processes  of  definition  and 
reasoning  can  do  little  in  religion  ;  and  those  who,  in  days  bygone, 
would  have  appealed  to  such  forms,  are  in  these  times  betaking 
themselves  to  something  livelier — to  Feeling,  Belief,  Inspiration — 
or  in  one  word,  to  Intuition,  which  looks  at  the  truth  or  object 
at  once,  and  through  no  interfering  process  or  dimming  medium. 
In  the  last  age,  certain  of  our  "  excelsior"  youths  were  like  to  be 
starved  in  cold  ;  in  this  age,  they  are  in  greater  danger  of  haviug 
the  seeds  of  a  wasting  disease  fostered  by  lukewarm  damps  and 
gilded  vapours. 

The  clearest  views,  they  show,  are  those  which  we  obtain  by 
gazing  immediately  on  the  object.  Have  not,  they  ask,  the  seers 
and  sages  of  our  world,  poetic  and  philosophic,  seen  further  than 
other  men  by  direct,  and  not  by  rcfiectcd  or  introspective  vision  ? 
Does  not  our  own  consciousness  witness  that  we  get  the  furtliest- 
reaching  glimpses  when  we  are  wholly  engrossed  in   looking  out 


428  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES         [paet  hi. 

at  tilings,  witliout  bciug  at  tlie  trouble  to  analyse  our  thoughts  ? 
There  are   moments  when   all  thinkers,  or  certain  thinkers,   have 
seen  further  than  in  their  usual  modes ;    and  this  by  overlooking 
all  interposing  objects,  and  gazing  full  on  the  truth.     Some  seem 
to  have  experienced   ecstatic  states,  in  which,  being  lifted  above 
themselves  and  the  earth,  and  carried — whether  in  the  body  or  out 
of  the  body  they  know  not— into  the  third  heavens,  they  behold 
things  which  it  is  not  possible  for  man  to  utter.     An  entranced 
minute   of  such  bursting  revelation   is  worth,  they    say,  hours   or 
years  of  your  logically  concatenated  thought.      The    soul   is   then 
carried  above  the  clouds  that  rise  from  the  damps  of  earth,  as  to 
a  great  height,  like  unto  Mount  Teueriffe,  from  which  ardent  gazers 
thought  they  saw  land  lying  to  the  far  west  ages  before  the  prac- 
tical Columbus  actually  set  foot  on  America.     As  tlicre  are  sounds, 
such  as  the  sighings  of  the  stream,  heard  in  the  stillness  of  evening, 
which  are  not  audible  in  the  bustle  of  the  day,  so  there  are  voices 
heard  in  certain  quieter  moods  of  the  mind  which  cannot  be  dis- 
cerned when  the  soul  is  being  agitated  by  ratiocination  and  dis- 
turbed by  discussion.      As  there  are  states  of  our  atmosphere  in 
which  remote  objects   seem   near,  as  there    are  days   in  which  we 
can  look  far  down  into  the  ocean  and  behold  its  treasures,  as  the 
night  shows  us  heavenly  lights  which  arc  invisible  in  the  glare  of 
common  day,  so  there  are  day  moods  and  night  moods  in  which 
we  look  into  great  depths,  and  see  the  dim  as  distinct,  and  behold 
truths  glittering  like  gems  and  brilliant  as  constellations.     At  these 
times  it  looks  as  if  a  veil  or  cloud  were  removed,  and  we  see,  as  it 
were  by  polarized  light,  the  inward  constitution  of  things  which 
usually  expose  but  their  tame   outside  ;    and  we  gaze   on  naked 
truth  without  the   robe  wliich  *it  commonly  wears,  but  which  con- 
ceals what  is  infinitely  more  lovely  than  itself.      Our  eye  can  then 
look  on  pure  light  without  being  blinded  by  it ;  and  we  stand  face 
to  face  with  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness,  and,  in  a  sense,  with 
God  himself. 

This  is  a  view  very  often  presented  in  the  present  day  ;  and  it 
should  be  admitted  at  once  that  it  is  by  direct,  and  not  by  reflected 
light,  that  the  mind  attains  its  clearest  and  most  penetrating  visions 
of  things.     Our  mental  powers  operate  spontaneously,  and  act  most 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  429 

faithfully  when  we  are  taking  no  notice  of  them,  but  are  influenced 
by  a  simple  desire  to  discover  the  truth ;  when  the  mind  is  in 
its  best  exercises,  the  interposition  of  metaphysical  introspection 
and  syllogistic  formulas  would  tend  only  to  dim  tlie  clearness  of 
the  view.  It  may  be  allowed  further,  that  there  are  times  in  every 
man's  thinking  when  great  truths  come  suddenly  upon  him  ;  times 
when  he  feels  as  if  he  were  emerghig  at  once  from  a  dark  and 
confined  tunnel  into  the  open  light  of  day.  These  are  states  to  be 
cherished,  and  not  curbed.  But  it  is  of  vast  moment  that  we 
understand  their  precise  nature,  and  the  value  to  be  attached  to 
them,  and  the  restrictions  to  be  laid  upon  the  confidence  we  put 
in  them. 

I.  In  these  visions,  clear  or  profound,  there  are  commonly  other 
processes  besides  simple  intuition.  Almost  always  there  is  involved 
in  tiiem  the  gathered  wisdom  of  long  and  varied  and  ripened  expe- 
rience ;  very  often  there  are  analyses  more  or  less  refined,  gen- 
eralizations of  a  narrower  or  wider  scope  ;  and  not  luifrequently 
ratiocinations,  passing  so  rapidly,  that  the  processes  are  not  only 
not  analysed,  they  are  not  observed.  "When  Archimedes  broke 
out  into  such  ecstasy  on  discovering  a  law  of  hydrostatics  ;  when 
the  thought  flashed  on  the  mind  of  Newton  that  the  power  which 
draws  an  apple  to  the  ground  is  that  which  holds  the  moon  in  her 
sphere ;  when  Franklin  identified  the  sparks  produced  by  rubbing 
certain  substances  on  tlie  earth  with  the  lightning  of  heaven ; 
when  it  occurred  to  Watt  that  the  steam  which  moved  the  lid  of  a 
kettle  might  be  turned  to  a  great  mechanical  purpose  ;  when  the 
Abbe  Haiiy,  in  gathering  up  the  fragments  of  a  crystal  which  had 
accidentally  fallen  from  his  hands,  surmised  that  all  crystals  were 
derived  from  a  few  primitive  forms  ;  when  Oken,  on  looking  at  the 
bleached  skull  of  a  deer  in  the  Hartz  Forest,  exclaimed,  "  This  is 
a  vertebrate  column !"  every  one  acknowledges  that  there  was 
vastly  more  than  intuitional  power  involved :  there  were  pre- 
supposed large  original  talents  of  a  peculiar  kind  in  each  case, 
^labits  of  scientific  research,  and  long  courses  of  systematic  train- 
ing and  observation  ;  while  at  the  instant  there  were  tlie  highest 
powers  of  comparison  and  computation  in  exercise.  It  will  be 
readily  allowed   that  there   was  a  similar  combination   of  native 


430  METAPHYSICAL  FR1NGIPLE8  [part  hi. 

gift,  of  accumulated  experience,  and  connected  ratiocination,  im- 
plied in  the  discoveries  made  by  such  men  as  Locke  and  Adam 
Smith  in  mental  and  social  science.  But  I  go  a  step  further,  and 
maintain  tliat  tlic  grand  views  of  moral  and  religious  truth  wliich 
burst  on  the  vision  of  our  grandest  sages  were  the  result  of  rays 
coming  from  a  thousand  scattered  points.  When  Socrates  un- 
folded to  an  age  and  nation  deprived  of  the  light  of  revelation 
such  elevated  doctrines  regarding  a  superintending  Providence, 
and  the  intimate  relation  between  virtue  and  happiness ;  when 
Plato  showed  that  man  participated  in  the  Divine  intelligence, 
and  tliat  the  forms  of  nature  partook  of  the  ideas  or  patterns 
which  liad  been  in  or  before  the  Divine  Mind  from  all  eternity  ; 
wlien  Leibnitz  developed  his  grand  theory  of  a  preestablished  har- 
mony running  through  the  mental  and  material  universe  —  there 
were  in  active  exercise  profound  reflection,  long  observation  of 
human  nature  and  of  the  ways  of  God,  searching  analyses,  and  a 
cultivated  moral  vision.  I  am  sure  that  there  is  a  similar  union 
involved  in  those  far-reaching  glimpses  which  more  obscure  men 
have  had,  at  their  better  moments,  of  great  moral  or  spiritual  veri- 
ties regarding  the  nature  of  man,  and  the  character  and  dealings 
of  God. 

The  leap  of  waters  at  the  cataract  of  Niagara  is  on  the  instant, 
yet  it  is  not,  after  all,  a  simple  process :  antecedent  to  it  there 
have  been  rains  falling  from  heaven,  and  these  gathered  into  a 
river,  and  acquiring  momentum  as  they  move  on,  and  a  precipi- 
tous cliff  formed  for  their  descent  ;  and  in  the  fall,  water,  rock, 
and  atmosphere  mingle  their  separate  influences.  Tlie  flash  of 
lightning  across  the  sky  is  instantaneous,  yet  it  is  the  produce  of 
long  meteorological  operations,  in  which  probably  air,  moisture, 
sunlight,  electricity,  and  an  attracting  object,  have  each  liad  its 
part ;  and  it  is  only  on  the  whole  gathering  to  an  overflow  that 
the  convulsive  effect  is  produced.  There  must  have  been  a  similar 
collection  of  strength,  and  combination  of  scattered  influences,  in 
those  sudden  leaps  which  certain  minds  have  taken ;  as  when 
Augustine  abandoned  Paganism,  and  Luther  left  ritualism ;  and 
there  are  the  same  in  those  movements  of  the  spirit  of  man  in 
which  it  penetrates   to   immense   distances  without  our  being  able 


BOOKiL]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  431 

to  follow  it  through  all  the  intermediate  space,  and  illumines  as  it 
passes  the  densest  masses  of  darkness.  It  is  the  business  of  phys- 
ical science  to  explain  the  one  set  of  processes,  and  it  proves  that 
they  are  the  result  of  a  conspiracy  of  agencies.  It  is  the  office  of 
psychological  science  to  explain  the  other  set  of  operations,  and  it 
can  show  that  there  is  involved  in  them  a  variety  of  original  and 
acquired  endowments.  The  views  are  so  wide-ranging,  because  all 
the  inlets  of  the  mind  have  been  open  to  receive  impressions.  A 
number  of  different  rays  have  met  in  the  production  of  this  pure 
white  light. 

III.  In  all  these  higher  visions  there  is  apt  to  be  a  mixture  of 
error.  The  glittering  lustre  in  which  the  objects  are  seen  is  apt 
to  dazzle  the  eye,  and  prevent  it  from  taking  too  narrow  an  iAspec- 
tion.  The  rapidity  of  the  mental  process  is  favourable  to  the 
concealment  of  hastiness  of  inference,  to  which  we  are  led  by  the 
influence  of  inferior  motives,  acting  like  concealed  iron  upon  the 
ship's  compass.  With  the  desire  to  discover  the  truth  there  may 
bo  united  the  personal  vanity  or  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  individ- 
ual, or  the  prejudices  of  the  pledged  partisan,  or  the  pride  of  the 
relf-righteous  temper,  or  the  spirit  of  contradiction.  How  often 
docs  it  happen,  in  such  cases,  that  tlie  conceits  of  the  fancy  or  the 
wishes  of  the  heart  are  attributed  to  the  reason,  that  high  feeling 
is  mistaken  for  liigli  wisdom,  that  what  is  dark  is  supposed  to  be 
deep,  that  what  is  lovely  is  supposed  to  be  holy !  In  the  region 
to  which  they  have  betaken  themselves,  objects  seem  gigantic 
because  perceived  in  the  mist,  as  they  look  through  the  openings 
in  which  persons  mistake  gilded  clouds  for  sunlit  islands,  or  for 
mountains  based  on  the  earth  and  piercing  the  sky. 

Besides  the  error  which  may  be  in  the  original  vision,  there 
are  apt  to  be  additional  mistakes  when  the  individual  would 
unfold  it  and  put  it  into  language.     As  Aurora  Leigh  says  : 

"  It  may  be,  perhaps, 
Sucli  have  not  settled  long  and  deep  enougli 
In  trance,  to  attain  to  clairvoyance ;  and  still 
The  memory  mixes  with  the  vision,  spoils 
And  works  it  turbid." 
The    intuitionalist  often  has   a  genuine  feeling ;    and   when   ho 
confines   himself   to    a    simple   description,  his    statement,    if   not 


432  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [paet  hi. 

altogether  free  from  error,  may  be  a  correct  transcript  of  wliat  lias 
passed  in  liis  own  mind,  and   may  have   as  vivifying   an  influence 
upon  others  as  it  has  had  upon  himself.     The  glow  which  radiates 
from    such    men  as    Coleridge,  when    tracing   the    correspondence 
between   subject  and   object,   or  Wordsworth,   as  he  sketches  the 
feelings  awakened  by  tlic  forms  and  aspects  of  nature,  or  Ruskin, 
as  we  gaze  with  him  on  the  higher  works  of  art,  steeps  all  atten- 
dant minds  in  its  own   splendours — as   the  gorgeous   evening   sun 
burnishes  all  objects,  clouds  as  well  as  landscapes,  in  its  own  rich 
hues.     The    intuitionalist    ever    succeeds    best    in    poetry,   or    in 
prose   which    is    of    the    character   of    poetry,   and   miglit,   if    the 
father  of  it   chose,  be  wedded   to   immortal  verse.     But  when  he 
attempts,  as  he   often   does,  a   systematic   exposition,   scientific  or 
artistic,  or  logical,  or  pliilosophical,  or  theological,  of  his  sentiments, 
thcie  may  now,  with  the  errors  of  the  original  v.riting,  be  mingled 
the   mistakes   that  arise   from  an  unfaithful  transcription.     Every 
one  knows  that  to  feel,  and  to  analyse  the  feeling,  are  two  very 
different   exercises  ;   and  it  often  happens  that  those  who  feel  the 
most  intensely,   and   even   those  who   think   the   most  profoundly, 
are  the  least  capacitated  for  unfolding  the  process  to  others.     In 
attempting  to  do  so,  they  often  mix  it  up  with  other  elements,  and 
the  product  is  a  conglomerate,  in  which  truth  and  error  are  banded 
together  without  the  possibility  of  separating  them.     In  unwinding 
the   threads,  they  have  tangled   them  ;    and  they  become  the  more 
hopelessly  entangled  the  greater  the  strength  which  they  exert  in 
unravelling  them.     The  pool  may,  or  quite   as   possibly  may  not, 
have  been  originally  pure ;    it  has   certainly   been   rendered   alto- 
gether turbid  by  the  mud  stirred  up  in  the  attempt  to  explore  it. 
As   the  author   of  Hours  icitli  the  Ilystics  says,  "  This  intuitional 
metal,  in  its  native  state,  is  mere  fluent,  formless  quicksilver  ;   to 
make  it  definite  and  serviceable,  you  must  fix  it  by  an  alloy  :  but 
then,  adas  1  it  is  23^^'''e   Reason  no  longer  ;   and,  so  far  from  being 
universal   truth,  receives   a   countless  variety  of  shapes,  according 
to  the  temperament,  culture,  or  philosophic  party  of  the  individual 
thinker." 

These  visions,  raptures,  and  ectasies  are  most  apt  to  appear  in 
philosophy  and  theology ;   and  it  is  there  they  work  most  mischief. 


iiooKn.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  433 

The  intuitionalist  is  ever  placing  things  in  their  wrong  category, 
dividing  the  things  which  should  be  joined,  or  mixing  the  things 
which  should  be  separated.  His  analogies  overlook  differences  ; 
his  distinctions  set  aside  resemblances.  His  limitations  are  like 
the  mad  attempts  of  Xerxes  to  chain  the  ocean.  His  definitions 
are  like  the  boundings  of  a  cloud — while  he  is  pointing  to  them 
they  are  changed  ;  indeed,  his  whole  method  is  like  a  project  to 
make  roads  and  run  fences  in  cloudlaud.  In  metaphysics,  he 
represents  as  essences  what  are  in  fact  nothing  but  attenuated 
ghosts,  created  by  his  own  oppressed  vision  as  it  looks  into  dark- 
ness. The  Neo-Platonists  pretended  to  see  the  One  and  the  Good 
by  ecstasy  ;  what  they  saw  was  merely  an  abstract  quality  sepa- 
rated from  the  concrete  object.  They  tried  to  raise  up  emotion  by 
the  contemplation  of  the  skeleton  attribute,  but  in  this  they  did 
and  could  not  succeed  ;  for  it  is  not  by  abstraction  that  feeling  is 
excited,  but  by  the  presentation  of  an  individual  and  living  reality. 
The  attempt  in  the  present  age,  by  certain  metaphysical  speculators, 
to  call  forth  feeling  by  the  presentation  of  the  True,  the  Beautiful, 
the  Good,  must  terminate  in  a  similar  failure.  It  is  not  by  the  con- 
templation of  truth,  but  of  the  God  of  truth  ;  not  by  the  contem- 
plation of  loveliness,  but  of  the  God  of  loveliness  ;  not  by  the 
contemplation  of  the  good,  but  of  the  good  God,  that  feelings  of 
adoration  and  love  are  called  forth  and  gratified. 

There  are  still  greater  perils  attending  the  indulgence  of  these 
inspirations  in  matters  of  religion.  The  intuitionalist  is  tempted 
to  ascribe  to  some  higher  influence  the  idea  which  arises  simply 
from  the  law  of  association  or  organic  impulse  ;  to  attribute  to 
intuition  what  is  mere  floating  sentiment ;  to  pure  reason  what  is 
the  product  of  habit  or  of  passion  ;  nay,  to  God  himself  what 
springs  from  the  excited  human  heart.  The  height  to  which  the 
soul  is  carried  in  these  elevations  is  apt  to  have  a  dizzying  influ- 
ence ;  and  not  a  few  have  fallen  when  they  seemed  to  themselves 
to  be  standing  most  secure.  Some,  pretending  to  a  heavenly 
mission,  have  yielded  at  once  to  the  temptation  which  the  true 
Messenger  withstood  ;  and,  without  a  promise  of  one  to  bear  them 
up  in  their  presumption,  have  cast  themselves  down  from  the 
pinnacle  to  which  they  were  raised,  and  been  lost  amidst  the 
28 


434  3IETAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

lauglitcr  of  men.  Some  Lave  claimed  for  tlicir  own  conceits  the 
inspiration  of  Ileaven  ;  and  have  come  to  deify  their  own  imagina- 
tions, and  to  sanctify  their  schemes  of  ambition,  by  representing 
them  as  formed  under  the  sanction  of  God.' 

III.  The  error  is  to  be  detected  by  a  careful  reflex  examination 
of  the  spontaneous  process  of  intuition,  or,  what  is  more  frequent, 
of  the  intuition  with  certain  conjoined  elements.  That  error  may 
creep  into  the  visions  and  raptures,  is  evident  from  the  circum- 
stance that  scarcely  any  two  inspirationalists  agree,  even  when 
pretending  to  have  revelations  on  the  same  point ;  and  when  they 
do  concur,  it  is  evidently  because  of  the  dominant  authority  of 
some  great  master.  How,  then,  are  we  to  decide  among  the  claims 
of  the  rival  sages,  or  seers,  or  doctors,  or  schools  ?  Plainly  by 
inquiring  which  of  them,  if  any,  are  in  fact  under  the  influence  of 
genuine  intuition  ;  and  this  is  to  be  -done  by  an  inductive  inquiry 
into  the  nature  of  our  original  convictions,  and  by  trying  the 
proposed  dogma  or  feeling  by  the  tests,  thus  discovered,  of 
intuition. 

In  no  other  department  of  human  investigation,  except  specula- 
tive philosophy  and  theology,  will  an  indiscriminate  appeal  to 
intuition  or  feeling  be  allowed  in  the  present  day.  Mathematics 
admit  of  no  such  loose  methods  of  procedure.  The  fundamental 
principles  of  that  science  are,  no  doubt,  founded  on  intuition  ;  but 
then  .it  is  on  intuitions  carefully  enunciated  and  formalized,  and 
the  whole  superstructure  is  banded  by  rigid  logical  deduction. 
Physical  science  will  not  tolerate  any  such  anticipations,  except 
at  times  in  the  way  of  suggesting  hypotheses,  to  be  immediately 
tried  by  a  rigid  induction  of  facts,  and  accepted  or  rejected  only 
as  they  can  stand  the  test.  In  political  science  there  is  a  necessity 
for  the  weighing  of  conflicting  principles,  and  room  for  clearness 
of  head  and  far-seeing  sagacity  ;  but  in  these  operations  mere 
intuition  has  a  small  share,  and  is  not  allowed  to  pass  till  it  ie 

>  These  paragraphs  were  more  applicable  to  the  prevailing  thought  and  feeling  when 
they  were  published  in  the  North  British  Review,  February,  1859,  and  in  the  first  edition  of 
this  work,  than  to  the  present  state  of  opinion,  which  is  experiencing  a  strong  critical  and 
negative  reaction.  I  have  allowed  them  to  remain  as  descriptive  of  a  curious  phase  of 
things- from  which  we  have  derived  some  sentiments,  which  will  continue  for  a  time— but 
only  for  a  time—  to  glow  upon  us  after  the  faith  that  produced  them  has  vanished. 


BOOK  II.]  INVOL VED  IN  THEOL OGY.  435 

carefully  sifted.  It  is  surely  high  time  that  intuition  were  pre- 
vented from  careering  without  restraint  in  the  fields  of  philosophy 
and  theology,  and  that  rules  were  laid  down,  not  for  absolutely 
excluding  it,  but  for  confining  it  within  its  legitimate  province. 

The  sole  corrective  of  the  evil,  the  only  means  of  separating  the 
error  from  the  truth,  is  to  be  found  in  a  cool  reflex  examination  of 
the  spontaneous  process.  This  is  needed,  even  when  the  idea  is 
one  which  has  occurred  to  our  own  minds : — to  protect  them  from 
the  self-deception  to  which  all  are  liable  ;  to  provide  them  with  a 
safety-lamp  when  they  would  enter  dark  subterranean  passages ;  or 
with  a  chart  when  they  would  venture  on  a  sea  of  speculation ;  or 
with  a  compass  to  tell  i\\Q  direction  when  they  would  go  out  beyond 
the  measm-ed  and  fenced  ground  of  thought  into  a  waste^above 
which  clouds  for  ever  hover,  and  where  are  precipices  over  which 
travellers  are  for  ever  falling.  Needed  to  guard  us  even  in  our 
personal  musings,  it  will  surely  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  still  more 
necessary  when  others  demand  our  assent  to  their  proffered  vision, 
lest  what  we  pick  up  be 

"  Like  cast-off  nosegays  picked  up  on  the  road, 
The  worse  for  being  warm." 

Not  that  this  review  of  the  spontaneous  thought  should  set  out 
with  the  fixed  purpose  of  rejecting  all  that  has  been  suggested ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  should  retain  and  carefully  cherish  all  that  may 
be  good,  and  cast  away  only  what  cannot  stand  a  sifting  inspection. 
But  the  testing,  in  order  to  accomplish  these  ends,  must  proceed  on 
certain  principles.  So  far  as  the  spontaneous  exercise  professes  to 
be  guided  by  an  observation  of  facts,  it  must  be  tried  by  the  canons 
of  the  logic  of  induction.  So  far  as  it  involves  ratiocination,  the 
approved  rules  of  reasoning  must  determine  its  validity.  So  far  as 
it  claims  to  be  intuitional,  metaphysical  science  is  entitled  to  demand 
that  the  principle  involved  be  shown  to  be  in  the  very  constitution 
of  the  mind,  self-evident,  necessary,  universal ;  and  further,  that  its 
determinate  rule  be  specified  and  formalized,  so  that  we  may  see 
whether  it  covers  the  case  in  hand. 

In  moral  subjects,  first  thoughts  are  often  the  best,  because 
formed  prior  to  the  calculations  of  selfishness.  They  may  not, 
however,  always  be  the  best ;  for  they  may  proceed  from  passion, 


436  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES  [part  hi. 

"which  in  fallen  man  is  as  spontaneous   and  quite  as  quick  as  any 
moral  impulse.     As  a  general  rule,  neitlicr  the  first  nor  the  second 
thoughts  are  the  best ;   but  the  last  thoughts  of  a  studious  course 
of  reflection,  in  which  both  first  and  second  thoughts  are  reviewed, 
that  which  is  good  in  each  being  preserved,  and  that  wliich  is  evil 
rejected.      The   same  remark  holds  good  of  the   exercises  of  the 
intellect.     The  first  views  of  the  trutli  are  commonly  the  freshest, 
and  often  the  justest.     It  has  been  remarked,  that  the  first  sight  of 
the  new-born  infant   discloses  a  resemblance   to   father  or  mother 
■which   the   subsequent   growth   of  the    child  effaces ;    and  there  is 
often   a   similar  power   of  penetration   in   the   first  glance   of  the 
intellectual  eye,  directed   towards  a  truth  presented  for  the   first 
time  :  ^le  prominent  features  are  then   caught  on  the  instant,  and 
correspondences  are  detected  wliich  disappear  on  a  more  familiar 
acquaintance,  being  lost  siglit  of  among  other  qualities.     But  wliile 
these  original  glimpses  are  often  very  precious,  and  are  to  be  care- 
fully noted  and  registered,  it  is  equally  true  that  first  impressions 
often  contain  a  large  mixture  of  error.     At  these  times  of  intense 
rapture  and  ardent  longing,  the  mind  seizes  eagerly  on  what  pre- 
sents itself,   and   is  incapable    of    drawing    distinctions,   and   may 
utterly  neglect  other  aspects,  which   are   to   be   detected  only  by 
longer  and  more  familiar  acquaintance.      Hence  the  need  of  cool 
reflection  to  come  after,  and  retain  only  what  can  be  justified  by 
the  rules  of  logic.     As  the  first  looks  of  the  infant  reveal  features 
which  are  subsequently  lost  sight  of,  so  the  last  look  of  the  dying 
will  call  up  once  more   likenesses  which  had   escaped  our  notice 
in  the  interval.      Let  there  be  a  similar  holding  of  all   the   true 
analogies — caught  in  the  first  look — in  those  last  looks,  which,  after 
many  a  survey,  we  cherish  and  retain  for  ever  of  the  objects  which 
excite  our  interests  and  fix  our  regards. 

IV.  In  order  to  give  the  intuitions  in  the  disordered  soul  of 
man  a  religious  direction,  there  is  need  of  a  very  special  Object 
to  evoke,  to  harmonize,  and  centre  them.  Had  man's  nature  been 
limpidly  pure,  I  supose  he  would  have  risen  at  once  and  spon- 
taneously to  the  contemplation  of  God,  and  that  his  soul  would 
have  reposed  with  satisfaction  on  Him.  But  man  ever  feels,  when 
he  would  thus  mount,  that  there  is  a  downward  drag;    when  he 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  m  THEOLOGY,  43T 

would  draw  nigh  to  God  that  there  is  a  repulsion  ;  and  not  knowing 
what  to  do  in  order  to  reconciliation,  he  either  betakes  himself  to 
various  sorts  of  supposed  pacifications — but  is  left  in  painful  un- 
certainty as  to  whether  they  can  accomplish  his  ends,  or  he  allows 
himself  to  sink  into  a  godless  indifference.  In  order  to  the  resto- 
ration of  peace,  and  to  his  heart  being  drawn  forth  towards  God, 
there  is  need  of  some  Reconciler  being  disclosed  to  the  view  ;  and 
this  is  what  is  so  aptly  provided  in  the  Eternal  Logos  becoming 
flesh  and  suflferiug  in  our  room  and  stead.  But  in  order  that  this 
Object  be  recognized,  he  must  come  before  us  with  the  authority 
of  God  ;  and  in  order  to  our  being  able  to  look  to  Him,  he  must  be 
set  before  us  in  such  a  way  that  we  can  readily  and  clearly  see 
Him.  It  is  thus  that  Jesus  Christ  comes  before  us,  attested  by 
prophecy  and  by  miracle,  thus  that  He  is  presented  to  us  in  the 
Word  as  in  a  glass.  We  have  now  the  Object  fitted  to  call  forth 
the  deeper  moral  intuitions  into  play,  and  to  gratify  them  each  and 
all  to  the  full.  We  can  now  look  to  God,  revealed  in  the  face  of 
his  Son,  without  being  scared  or  prostrated  ;  and  as  we  gaze,  the 
pent-up  and  imprisoned  religious  affections  are  set  free.  The  sense 
of  sin,  which  before  so  bound  the  heart  in  icy  hardness,  is  melted 
as  by  genial  heat  and  repentance  bursts  forth  in  copious  streams 
to  relieve  the  soul.  Faith  feels  that  it  can  repose  on  a  pacified 
God,  and  love  clasps  and  embraces  Him  who  is  now  seen  to  be 
"  chiefest  among  ten  thousand,  and  altogether  lovely." 

Need  I  add,  that  in  order  that  the  Object  presented  accomplish 
those  ends  he  must  be  a  real  object.  Were  he  a  mere  picture,  or 
a  fable,  or  a  myth,  the  soul  would  be  driven  back  by  the  idea 
ever  pressed  on  it,  that  this  is,  after  all,  an  illusion.  The  under- 
standing would  rebel  against  the  imposture  which  tried  upon  it  ; 
and  the  intuitions  would  refuse  to  appear  on  the  idle  summons 
given  them  ;  and  the  faith,  comet-like,  after  being  too  near  the 
heat,  would  veer  round  and  hasten  into  a  region  of  coldness  ;  and 
the  soul  would,  in  sulkiness,  as.  it  were,  retreat  into  a  dim  cavern 
where  it  has  only  a  flickering  light,  but  from  which  it  is  morbidly 
indisposed  to  pass  into  the  sunshine  without. 

It  is,  as  I  reckon  it,  a  happy  result  of  the  development  of  prin- 
ciples in'  this  treatise,  that  it  shows  how  we   must  still  go  to  the 


438  METAPHYSICAL  PBINGIPLES        [part  hi. 

Word  of  God  for  our  religion.  All  attempts  liitlierto  made  to 
construct  a  religion  independent  of  Scripture  liavc  turned  out 
acknowledged  failures  :  the  systems  reared  cannot  stand  a  sif ting- 
examination  by  reason,  and  have  been  utterly  powerless  on  human 
character.  There  was  an  expectation,  long  cherislred  by  many, 
that  something  better  than  the  old  Christianity  of  the  Bible 
literally  interpreted,  might  come  out  of  the  great  German  philo- 
sophic systems  of  Kant  and  Fichtc,  Schelling,  Hegel,  and  Schleier- 
macher  ;  but  these  hopes  have  been  doomed  to  acknowledge  dis- 
appointment. The  idea  was  fondly  cherished  by  some  that  certain 
men  of  literary  genius,  who  had  caught  more  or  less  of  the  s])irit 
of  the  German  metaphysics,  such  as  Coleridge,  and  Goethe,  and 
Carlyle,  must  have  something  new  and  profound  to  satisfy  the 
soul  in  its  deeper  cravings,  could  they  only  be  induced  to  utter  it. 
Coleridge  has  played  out  his  tune,  sweet  and  irregular  as  the  harp 
of  ^Eolus,  and  all  men  perceive  tliat  he  never  had  anything  to  meet 
the  deeper  wants  of  humanity,  except  what  he  got  from  tlie  songs 
of  Zion.  It  has  long  been  clear,  in  regard  to  Goethe,  and  is  now 
being  seen  in  regard  to  Carlyle,  that  neither  of  them  ever  had  any- 
thing positive  to  furnish  in  religion,  and  that  all  they  had  to  utter 
was  blankly  negative  ;  and  I  rather  think  that  the  last  hope  of 
drawing  anything  soul-satisfying  from  these  quarters  has  vanished 
from  the  minds  of  those  who  have  been  most  impressed  by  their 
genius.  I  freely  acknowledge,  as  to  some  of  the  eminent  men  I 
have  referred  to,  that  they  have  given  profound  expositions  of  some 
of  the  deeper  principles  and  feelings  of  the  soul,  and  have  thus 
furnished  a  contribution  to  philosophy,  and  incidentally  benefited, 
theology.  In  particular,  it  may  be  admitted  of  a  school  of  intui- 
tioualist  divines  who  have  felt  the  influence  of  the  Teutonic  specu- 
lations, that  they  have  called  attention  to  foundations  and  impulses 
in  our  nature,  which  a  narrow  artificial  theology — made  up  of 
coagulated  abstracts  of  the  supposed  Christian  system  —  had  over- 
looked ;  but  which,  as  these  men  have  shown,  had  not  been  lost 
sight  of  in  actual  and  living  Christianity.  The  school  has  erred, 
not  in  the  positive  views  which  the  members  of  it  have  unfolded, 
but  in  what  they  have  omitted  and  scornfully  denied.  In  partic- 
ular, they  have  lost  sight  of  one  of  the  deepest  and  most'ineradi- 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  m  THEOLOGY.  439 

cable  of  all  our  intuitions  ;  they  have  taken  no  notice  of  that  sense 
of  sin  and  apprehension  of  God  and  of  a  judgment-day  which  make 
men  feel  dissatisfied  with  every  form  of  natural  religion,  and  bring 
them  in  helplessness  to  the  Crucified  Saviour  and  the  written 
Word.'  Intuitionalism  has  had  its  trial  in  the  age  now  passing 
away,  as  rationalism  had  in  the  previous  one,  and  both  have  been 
found  utterly  iusuDficient.  Rationalism  reared  a  structure  with 
regular  walls  and  well-fitted  gates,  but  the  soul  has  ever  felt  it  to 
be  desolate  as,  a  prison.  Intuitionalism  has  raised  up  a  showy 
summer  palace,  but  it  is  utterly  and  manifestly  unfitted  to  with- 
stand the  winds  and  colds  of  winter. 

There  are  some  who  imagine  that  we  may  now  discard  the 
Bible,  and  yet  retain  all  the  light  and  assurance  and  comfort  which 
it  has  diffused.  There  were  persons  in  the  last  century  who 
thought  they  could  dispense  with  the  Scriptures,  and  yet  retain 
among  the  people  their  liigh  morality.  The  generation  which 
had  been  piously  educated  did  in  many  cases  keep  up  to  the 
high  ethical  standard  ;  but  the  generation  which  succeeded,  edu- 
cated in  mere  morality,  thought  they  had  outgrown  the  rigid 
virtue  of  their  fathers,  as  these  fathers  had  outlived  the  rigid 
orthodoxy  of  their  fathers  ;  and  tlie  race  which  was  reared  to  be 
moral  turned  out  fearfully  immoral.  Men  had  cut  down  the 
branch  on  which  the  flowers  grew,  expecting  they  would  still 
flourish,  and  were  astonished  when  they  faded.  In  the  day  which 
has  now  reached  and  passed  its  noon,  the  corresponding  class  of 
thinkers  are  under  a  deep  impression  that  there  is  need  of  feeling 
in  order  to  incite  to  a  living  morality,  and  so  we  must  have  senti- 
*ment — by  all  means,  and  above  all  things — warm  and  glowing 
sentiment.  But  still  they  would  rise  above  the  inspired  Word,  and 
leave  it  behind,  foolishly  imagining  that  they  may  have  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  diffused  fervour,  without  the  body  fi^om  which  the 
heat  radiates.  The  issue  of  such  an  experiment  is  certain,  and  is 
already  beginning  to  show  itself.     The  race  trained  under  such 

»  In  particular,  Mr.  Maurice,  drawing  from  the  schools  in  Germany  which  flourished  prior 
to  the  later  in  iuirie3  into  Sin  and  Conscience,  has,  while  developing  some  of  the  airier  of 
our  mental  aspirations,  overlooked  the  deeper  qonvictions  of  the  moral  power,  and  thus 
been  led  to  give  a  meagre  and  unsatisfactory  account  of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement.  There 
are  important  remarks  in  Bigg's  Anglican  Theology. 


UO  METAPHYSICAL  PRINCIPLES       [paet  iii. 

influences  will  go  a  step  furtlicr  in  tlic  direction  in  wliicli  tlicy  have 
been  led,  and  will  have  no  difficulty  in  discarding  the  feelings, 
which  are  left  without  a  basis,  till  we  have  a  generation  without 
creed,  and  without  any  semblance  of  piety,  real  or  pretended.  The 
evening  sky,  immediately  after  the  sun  lias  sunk,  may  be  as  lovely 
and  gorgeous  as  wlien  he  was  above  the  horizon  ;  but  he  must  be 
very  simple  who  imagines,  that  after  the  illuminating  body  has 
gone,  the  glow  will  not  soon  fade  into  gloom. 

N .  A  theology  which  looks  merely  to  tliat  portion  of  Divine 
truth  which  is  addressed  to  our  intuitions  must  be  vague,  loose, 
and  unsatisfactory.  If  compelled  to  decide  between  a  rationalistic 
and  intuitional  religion,  I  would  infinitely  prefer  the  latter,  just  as 
I  would  choose  an  idealistic  view  of  nature  rather  than  a  mate- 
rialistic or  sensational  or  mechanical.  But  I  am  not  bound  to 
make  a  selection.  It  is  all  true  that  a  logical  divinity  has  ever 
been  felt  to  be  liarsh  and  crabbed,  and  that  there  has  been  nothing 
in  it  to  gain  our  deeper  convictions  or  win  our  regards.  But  it  is 
as  true  that  intuitional  theology  gives  mere  cloudland,  in  which 
all  is  vapoury  and  hazy  at  the  best,  and  in  which  we  are  at  last 
apt  to  be  drenched  in  rain  and  tempest.  If  the  one  looks  so  unat- 
tractive, as  diked  so  rigidly  into  rectilinear  and  rectangular  figures, 
disregardful  of  all  natural  height  and  hollow,  the  other  is  a  territory 
in  an  unmeasured  and  unenclosed  waste. 

In  religion,  in  all  its  beneficent  forms,  especially  in  religion  as 
set  forth  in  the  Bible,  all  the  deeper  principles  and  higher  faculties 
of  the  soul  are  addressed,  and,  being  all  engaged,  they  keep  one 
another  in  their  proper  position,  while  each  fulfills  its  function  the 
better  by  having  the  cooperation  of  the  others.  True  religion 
certainly  calls  forth  the  intuitional  capacity  in  its  highest  intensity, 
but  it  likewise  gives  exercise  to  other  powers  of  the  soul.  If  there 
be  need  of  an  immediate  reason  to  gaze  on  higher  truth,  and  appre- 
ciate it,  there  is  also  use  for  the  logical  understanding  in  examin- 
ing, and  weighing  the  evidence,  in  distinguishing  one  proposition 
from  another,  and  in  keeping  truth  consistent  with  itself;  and 
there  is  a  place  for  the  affections  to  collect  an  interest  around  it. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  the  will,  or  the  choosing  and  resolv- 
ing faculty,  has  a  very  special  work  to  do  in  following  out  the 


BOOK  II.]  INVOLVED  IN  THEOLOGY.  441 

obligations  lying  on  us  in  the  discharge  of  duties,  which  are  an 
essential  part  of  religion,  and  react  upon  our  whole  intellectual 
and  moral  nature ;  "  by  works  faitli  is  made  perfect."  It  is  all 
true  that  a  performance  of  duty  without  respect  to  God  and  godli- 
ness will  become  empty  formalism  or  self-righteous  Phariseeisra, 
but  it  is  just  as  certain  that  a  mere  gazing  intuitionalism  will  end 
in  idle  musing — wasting  itself,  and  so  dying  out. 

It  was  never  meant  that  any  one  of  the  members  of  our  psychical 
frame  should  act  apart  from  the  others  in  religious  exercises,  just 
as  it  is  not  intended  that  one  limb  of  the  body  should  act  without 
the  others,  or  that  the  eye  should  act  without  the  ear,  or  the  taste 
without  the  touch.  In  a  sound  piety  the  various  powers  act  in 
combination,  like  the  various  elements — heat,  colour,  and  chemical 
— of  the  sunbeam,  and  they  are  to  be  separated  only  for  scientific 
ends  by  a  scientific  process.  True,  there  may,  even  in  natural 
operations,  be  a  preponderance  of  one  of  the  elements  above  the 
others,  for  the  accomplishment  of  special  ends ;  still  they  are  never 
altogether  separated  ;  and  if  studiously  kept  apart,  or  if  certain  of 
them  be  allowed  to  gather  to  excess,  their  action  may  become  dele- 
terious, or  they  may  burst  out  in  a  destructive  discharge.  In 
particular,  the  contemplative  element,  if  unduly  fostered  (like  a 
plant  in  a  stove),  and  dissevered  from  rigid  thought  and  a  resolute 
will,  must  issue  in  a  mystic  creed  and  a  life  of  day-dreams. 
Revelation  calls  forth  all  the  powers  of  the  soul.  The  truth  of  the 
"^Y'ord — like  the  light  of  the  sun — is  one,  but  it  has,  after  all,  a 
number  of  elements,  such  as  narrative,  example,  description,  type, 
argument,  appeal,  exhortation,  warning,  precept,  promise,  presen- 
tations, and  representations,  in  prose  and  poetry,  each  fitted  to 
evoke  a  corresponding  power  in  our  souls,  and  to  draw  it  forth  in 
a  proper  direction,  and  give  it  the  proper  hue  ;  and  piety  is  in  the 
healthiest  and  loveliest  state  when  every  essential  principle  of 
our  constitution  is  exercised  in  due  measure  and  proper  pro- 
portion. 

VI.  In  a  living  piety  the  intuitions  have  a  very  important  place, 
being  always  associated  with  other  mental  exercises.  ^\  the  deeper 
convictions  of  our  nature  rest  on  the  objects  which  are  presented 
in  a  living  religion ;  indeed  they  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  else. 


442  METAPHYSICAL  FBINCIPLES  [part  in. 

The  self-existent  being,  the  self-subsistent  substance,  the  inherent 
power,  the  loveliness,  the  love,  the  righteousness,  the  truthfulness 
of  God,  these,  not  in  their  abstract  forms  (wliicli  are  far  too  like 
skeletons  to  delight  tlie  eye,  but  as  embodied  in  full  form  in  a 
Living  Being,  are  objects  on  which  the  soul  would  gaze  with  rap- 
ture in  its  pure  and  unclouded  moments  ;  it  would  turn  towards 
them  as  towards  an  attractive  light ;  it  reclines  upon  them  as  upon 
a  mountain  whose  foundations  can  never  be  moved  ;  and  it  expands 
towards  them  as  towards  the  expanse  of  heaven,  with  its  still  stars 
away  in  the  depths.  We  have  never  reached  the  proper  objects  of 
religious  faith,  nor  even  the  region  in  whicli  they  dwell,  if  intui- 
tion has  not  been  bearing  up  the  soul.  In  our  highest  exercises  of 
rapt  devotion,  other  operations,  though  still  present  in  their  results, 
may  disappear  in  their  processes,  to  allow  the  soul  to  gaze  with- 
out distraction  immediately,  and,  as  it  were,  face  to  face,  on  God 
WHO  IS  A  Spirit,  on  God  who  is  Light,  on  God  who  is  Love. 


APPElfDIX. 


THE  ANALYTIC  OF  LOGICAL  FORMS.    (P.  356.) 


Considerable  improvements  have  been  made  witMn  the  last  age  in  Fonnal 
Logic.  In  particular,  the  regulating  piinciple  and  forms  of  reasoning  have 
been  subjected  to  a  sifting  examination.  Less  attention  has  been  paid  to  the 
IN'otion,  and  jet  I  believe  that  it  is  by  a  thorough  exposition  of  its  nature  that 
the  disputed  points  in  Logic  are  to  be  settled. 

L  There  are  evidently  three  kinds  of  Notions.  Fh'st,  There  is  the  Singular 
Concrete  Notion  :  singular  in  that  it  is  of  one  object ;  concrete  in  that  it  con- 
tains an  aggregate  of  attributes.  Secondly,  There  is  the  Abstract  Notion,  or 
the  notion  of  a  part  of  an  object  as  a  part,  say  the  leg  of  a  chair ;  more  par- 
ticularly a  quality  of  an  object,  such  as  transparency,  clemency,  energy.  Thirdly, 
There  is  the  Universal  or  General  Notion  ;  that  is,  the  notion  of  objects  as  pos- 
sessing a  common  attribute  or  common  attributes,  the  notion  including  all 
objects  possessing  the  common  attribute  or  attributes.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
moment  to  distinguish  the  second  of  these  notions  from  the  thii-d.  The  merely 
abstract  notion,  e.  g.,  tranquillity,  does  not  embrace  objects ;  it  cannot  be  de- 
scribed as  having  extension  ;  in  fact,  it  has  nothing  general  in  its  nature.  It  is 
the  general  notion  (and  not  the  abstract)  which  has  extension,  that  is,  objects ; 
as  well  as  comprehension,  that  is,  attributes  or  marks.  It  is  the  general  notion 
(rather  than  the  abstract  notion)  which  has  been  treated  of  in  the  common  log- 
ical treatises  ;  and  in  the  logic  which  has  sprung  out  of  Kant's  system,  the  ab- 
stract notion  is  altogether  overlooked. 

A  distinction  of  some  importance  may  be  drawn  between  two  classes  of 
General  Notions,  between  those  in  which  the  attribute  or  mark  is  one,  e.  g., 
transparent,  benevolent,  pious,  and  those  in  which  there  is  an  aggregate  of 
attributes,  such  as  metal,  dog,  man,  in  which  no  man  can  teU  how  many  quali- 
ties are  comprised.  The  former  may  be  called  the  Generalized  Abstract ;  the 
latter  the  Generalized  Concrete,  inasmuch  as  in  it  an  aggregate  of  the  attributes 
to  be  found  in  the  singulars  goes  up  into  the  universal.  In  the  one  the  com- 
prehension is  definite,  in  the  other  indefinite.  The  latter  is  the  Species  of  the 
schoolmen,  and  embraces  the  classes  called  Kinds.  (See  Mill's  Logic,  Book  i. 
Chap.  vii.  4.) 

I  have  hinted  at  some  of  the  laws  involved  in  the  formation  both  of  tho 
Abstract  and  General  Notion.  Thus,  in  regard  to  the  former :  (1.)  The  Abstract 
implies  the  Concrete  ;  (2.)  When  the  Concrete  is  real  the  Abstract  is  also  real ; 
(3.)  When  the  Abstract  is  an  attribute  it  has  no  independent  reality,  its  reality 

(443j 


4^^  APPENDIX. 

is  simply  iu  the  Concrete  objects  (see  snpra,  pp.  136,  217).  Again,  in  regard  to 
the  General  Notion :  (1.)  The  Universal  implies  the  Singulars ;  (2.)  Wlien  the 
Singulars  are  real  the  Universal  is  also  real ;  (3.)  The  reality  of  the  Universal 
consists  in  the  objects  possessing  common  marks  (see  supra^  pp.  137,  223). 
These  laws,  consistently  carried  out,  settle  for  us  the  long  agitated  question  as 
to  the  reality  in  the  general  notion,  and  also  in  the  abstract. 

II.  We  must  have  it  settled  what  is  the  precise  relation  of  the  two  notions 
in  Judgment.  The  language  employed  by  logicians  generally  is  sufficiently 
uncertain.  Sometimes  the  relation  is  described  loosely  as  agreement  or  disagree- 
ment, without  saying  in  what ;  sometirues  it  is  represented  as  being  identity, 
or  equality,  or  that  of  whole  and  j)arts.  We  must,  as  it  appears  to  me,  draw 
a  distinction  between  two  sorts  of  judgments.  When  the  notions  are  abstract, 
it  is  one  of  identity  or  equality,  as  when  we  say,  "  Logic  is  the  science  of  the 
laws  of  thought,"  or  that  "  two  and  two  are  four."  In  all  such  cases  the  judg- 
ment is  substitutive,  and  the  two  notions  are  convertible,  so  that  we  can  say, 
"  The  science  of  the  laws  of  thought  is  logic,"  and  "  four  is  two  and  two." 
But  when  there  is  a  general  notion  in  the  proposition,  the  relation  is  one  of 
extension  and  co?np?rIiension.  Thus  "  Man  is  responsible,"  means,  in  extension 
that  man  is  included  in  the  class  of  responsible  beings,  and,  in  comprehension, 
that  resjjonsibility  is  an  attribute  of  man  (see  supra,  p.  361). 

m.  If  we  carry  the  distinction  between  the  abstract  and  general  notion  into 
Reasoning,  it  introduces  clearness  into  points  at  present  confused.  The  mode 
in  which  the  regulating  jiiinciple  of  reasoning  is  commonly  put  is  veiy  vacil- 
lating. Thus  it  is  said  (in  the  affirmative  foi-m)  to  be,  "  Things  arc  the  same 
which  are  the  same  with  a  thii'd  ;"  and  again,  "  Tilings  which  agree  with  one 
and  the  same  thing  agree  with  one  another ;"  and  again,  "  Things  which  co- 
exist with  the  same,  co-exist  with  one  another"  (Mill).  The  first  of  these  is 
too  narrow ;  the  others  are  too  vague,  for  they  do  not  specify  the  nature  of  the 
agreement  or  co-existence. 

(1.)  When  the  Notions  are  singular  or  abstract,  the  Regulating  Principle  of 
Reasoning  is,  "Things  are  the  same  which  are  the  same  with  a  third,"  or, 
"  Things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another."  Thus 
(to  take,  as  an  example,  the  unfigured  syllogism  of  Hamilton,  only  j)ut  in  its 
proper  form) : 

Sulphate  of  iron  is  copperas. 
Sulphate  of  iron  is  not  sulphate  of  copper. 
.*.  Sulphate  of  copper  is  not  copperas. 

Or,  X  +  y=a. 

z     —a. 

.•.x  +  y=z. 

(3.)  Wten  there  is  a  General  Notion,  the  main  (for  there  are  others  involred) 
RegTilating  Principle  is  the  Dictum  of  Aristotle,  as  shown  by  Whately,  and 
logicians  generally. 


INDEX. 


Abelard,  169. 

Abbot  on  Sight,  114-115. 

Abstraction  and  Abstract  Notion, 14-16,  35, 

42,  53-57,  80, 135-138,  139,  187,  216-218, 

443-444. 
Academics,  123,  124. 
^Esthetics.     See  Kalology. 
Analysis,  216. 

Analytic  Judgments,  214  215,  282, 304, 361 
Anselm,  124,  169,  191,  383. 
Anthropomorphism,  406-410. 
Antinomies  of  Kant,  338-340. 
Appetencies,  241-246,  249,  358. 
Ap-iori,  3,  16-18,  29,  94,  214-215,  307-308, 

344,  355,  357,  377-379. 
Aristotle,  11, 14,  15, 35,  47,  83-85, 123,  157, 

159,  193,  273-274,  287,  327,  411. 
Augustine,  124,  169,  184,  341,  383. 
Axioms,  42,  54,  57,  219,  222,  361-366. 

Bacon,  3,  63,  274,  415. 

Bain,  Prof.,  156,  173,  211. 

Baxter,  R.,  87. 

Beattie,  93,  306. 

Beauty,  244,  249-251. 

Being,  108,   128,   138-141,  276,   312-313, 

389-390. 
Beliefs,  Primitive,  33,  37,   166-205,  292- 

293.     See  Faith. 
Berkeley,  105, 109-110, 147-148,  327,  330. 
Berkeleyan  Theory  of  Vision,  107, 114-115 
Body,  103-127,  151,  163,  219,  390,  398. 
Brown,  T.,  95-96,  105,  124,  178,  211,  232- 

233,  253. 
Browne,  Bp.,  341. 
Buffier,  91-92,  131,  158. 
Butler,  247,  254,  289,  417,  422. 

Calderwood,  Mr.,  172-173,  199-200. 
Campbell,  Principal,  128. 
Carlyle,  394,  395,  438. 


Categories  of  Kant,  16-17,  94,  211 
Catholicity  as  a  Test  of  Truth,  33,  37,  41 

44,  84,  85,  86,  92,    93,  190,   203,  226, 

332. 
Cause    and    Causation,    66,    74,    161-166, 

225-241,    269-270,    274,    368-369,    380 

384,  419,  423.     See  Power. 
Chalmers,  390,  417. 
Charnoek,  35,  169. 

Classification,  369.     See  Generalization. 
Clarke,  S.,  56,  183,  198,  337,  412. 
Cognition,  33,  90,  101-103,  127-134,  166- 

172,    207,    247-248,    280-294,    312-316, 

340-345. 
Coleridge,  306,  411-413,  438. 
Colour,  105,  121-122. 
Common  Sense,  93-94,  95,  96. 
Conceiving,  as  a  Test  of  Trutli,  300,  304, 

343-344. 
Concrete,  14,  102,  135,  216-218,  443-444. 
Conscience,   244,  247-265,    303,    384-385, 

390,416-417. 
Consciousness,   3,   18-19,  35,  37,  45,  127- 

134,  176,  210,  399. 
Contradiction,  Principle  of,  50-51,  55,  194- 

195,  215,  282,  300,  304. 
Contradictions,  supposed  in  Human  Rea- 
son, 50,  194-195,  334,  338-340. 
Cousin,  M.,  62,   74-75,    96-97,    112,    131, 

140,  191,  233,  268,  309. 
Criterion  of  Truth,  282. 
Cudworth,  47,  87,  307,  310. 
Culverwel,  87. 


Definitions,  Mathematical,  364-366. 
Demonstration,  305,  348-352,  359,  386. 
Descartes,  82,   87-88,  101,   126,   130-131, 

143,  149,  158,  159,   181,   191,  275,  383i 

411-412. 
Design,   Argument    from,   379-381,    384, 

423. 

(445) 


4-46 


INDEX. 


Divinity,  Christian,  410-422. 


Edwards,  411-412. 

Eleatics,  82,  123,  139,  148-149,  273,  312, 

353 
Emotiona,  242-24G,  249,  318-319,  402. 
Epicureans,  85-86,  123. 
Essence,  152-154. 
Ethics,  54,  66,  62,  265,  305,  350-352,  353, 

357-360. 
Excluded  Middle,  Law  of,  195,  215,  282. 
Experience,  3,  23,  84-85,  89,  97,  104,  113- 

117,  203,  225-228,  237-241,  294-299,  305, 

308,  310-311.  352,  362-363,  379-382,  385. 
Extension.     See  Space. 
Externality,  109-110. 


Faculties  of  the  Mind,  18,  134,  152,  206, 

242,  281,  314. 
Faith,  33,  167-175,  193-194,  202-205,  206, 

248,   284,  292-294,  301,  314,  316,  346, 

370-377,  378. 
Ferrier,  Prof.,  110,  330. 
Fiehte,  18,  62, 154,  172,  209,  241,  327,  438. 
Fraser,  Prof.,  173. 
Fundamental  Principles,  1,  35,  44,  64-65, 

95,  277,  278 


Generalization  and  General  Notions,  14- 
16,  27-30,  35,  42,  53-57,  80,  137-138, 
187,  223-224,  362,  368,  443-444. 

Gillespie,  179. 

Gnosiology,  277,  280.     See  Cognition. 

Goethe,  438. 


Hamilton,  Sir  W.,  Preface,  11,  36,  44,46, 
96,  105,  107,  109,  118,  124,  125,  128, 
131,  146,  148,  168,  172-173,  178-179, 
193-197,  207-210,  211,  215,  277,  291, 
302,  304,  333,  338,  340-341,  342-345, 
415. 

Happiness  in  relation  to  Moral  Good,  261- 
265. 

Hegel,  29,  62,  75,  82,  136,  154,  196,  275, 
286,  327,  394,  438. 

Heraclitus,  47,  82,  123,  148,  409. 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  86. 

H'erschel,  3ir  J.,  179. 


Hobbes,  ISS,  384. 

Howe,  J.,  87,  191,  198. 

Hume,  92-93,  101,  141,  211,  232,241,307, 

327,  330,  346. 
Hutcheson,  F.,  92,  248,  411-412. 


Idea,  11-14,  20,  90,  97,  285-293. 
Idealism,  4,  109,  115,  316-327,  398. 
Identity,  155,  212-216,  282,  361,  367. 
Immortality  of  the  Soul,  389-393. 
Individuals,   15,   26-30,   38,   53-57,   84-85, 

89,  94,  97,  210,  214,  223,  349-350. 
Induction,  3,  84-85,  97,  279,  299,  348-352. 

367. 
Infinite,  27,  48,  96,  181-182,  184  185,  186- 

201,  220,  383,  423. 
lunate  Ideas,  1,   11,  20,   35,  37,  48,  90, 

309-311,  etc. 
Intuition,  Preface.    18-19,    25-30,   37,   99, 

71-73,  77-81,  etc  ;;:"■ 

Intuitional  Theoloffv,  427-442. 
Irenseus,  241. 


Jacobi,  70.  172,  405. 
Jackson,  86. 

Judgments,  Primitive,  33,  37,  90,  206, 241, 
249,  282,  301-303,  314-316,  350,  366. 


Kalologt,  249-251,  354. 

Kant,  16-18,  36,'  44,  54,  74,  94-95,  102, 
109,  112,  123,  124,  128,  130,  136,  139, 
140,  141-142,  154,  172,  177-178,  183, 
184,  211,  213,  232,  235-237,  267-268. 
275,  285-290.  291,  306-311,  327,  330, 
338-340,  343,  353,  357,  361,  377,  383- 
384,  390,  398,  399,  412,  426,  438. 

King,  Archbp.,  90,  209. 

Knowledge.     See  Cognition. 

Lactantius,  341. 

Leibnitz,  44,   90-91,    126,    136,    141-142, 

183,  191,  213,  284,  383. 
Locke,  5,  13,  15,  26,  62,  80,  82,  89-90, 101, 

112,    131-132,    142,   146-148,  153,   158, 

159,  189,  207-210,  211,  248,  28-3,  285, 

287,  290,  366,  411,  436. 
Logic,   54,   215,   224,   305,    350-352,  353, 

354-357,  361,  443444. 


INDEX. 


447 


Lucretius,  ITT. 

Maoki\tosh,  Sir  J.,  233. 

Mathematics,   53,  57,   222,  350-352,  361- 

366,  367. 
Mansel,  Dr.,  128,  154,  196-197,  207-210, 

269,  341,  345,  361. 
Maurice,  Mr.,  439. 
Maxims,  28-30,  42,  54,  63-67,   135,  138, 

210,  218-225,  282,  298-299,  361-369. 
Metaphysics,  6,  54,    58-63,    67,    273-280, 

356-357,  359,  368-369,  413-422. 
Memory,  174-175,  370. 
Mill,  J.   S.,  136,  206,   233,  239-240,  263- 

264,  300,  341-344,  362-363,  365. 
Miracles,  239-241. 
Mode,  149-150,  183. 
Moral  Good,  27,  48,  54,  62,  73,  81,  252- 

257,  261-265,  357-360,  384-385,  290-392. 
More,  Henry,  86-^7. 
Motion,  158-159,  219. 
Motive  Powers,  242-249. 
Mailer,  105,  106,  156-157,  159. 


Necessary  Truth,  22-23,  32-34,  39-40,  42- 
43,  47,  57,  83-84,  86,  89,  90-91,  92-93, 
94,  95,  96,  129,  181,  190,  203,  226-228, 
235,  239-240,  257,  284,  299-305,  386. 

Nescience,  Theory  of,  Preface,  172,  342, 
344-347. 

Neo-Platonists,  83,  139,  433. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  56,  184. 

Notion.  See  Abstraction  and  Generaliza- 
tion, 

Number,  157-158,  222,  363. 


Obligation,  Moral,  247,  252-257,  261, 
262-265,  385,  390,  392,  400-401,  423. 

Ontology,  277,  312-316, 

Original  Sense-Perceptions,  103-117,  120- 
122,  321-322, 

Owen,  J.,  87, 

Pantheism,  142-144,  154-155,  393-406. 
Pain  in  P>,elation  to  Moral  Evil,  264-265, 
Perfect,  The,  191-201. 
Personality  and  Personal  Identity,  67,  95, 

128-134,    154-155,    212-213,    284,    392- 

893,  399, 


Pliantasm  and  Phantasy,  11-13,  14,  186- 

187,  195,  300,  344, 
Phenomenal  Theory  of  Knowledge,  16,  94, 

109,  128,  139-140,  177,  330, 
Philosophy,  30,  45,  68,  275,  277. 
Plato,  13,  35,  47,  55,  82-83,  123,  149, 273- 

274,  280,  282,  410. 
Physical  Sciences,  Mctapliysical.Principles 

involved  in,  218,  352,  367-369. 
Power,  110-113, 125-127,  131-133, 141-142, 

160166,  225-241,  312,  315.     -See  Cause. 
Properties,  124-127,152,  224-225,368-369. 
Protagoras,  47, 
Psychology,  349,  353,  355. 


Qualities,  124-128,  150-152. 
Quantity,  220-222,  361,  363,  368. 


Rationalism,  426. 

Reality,  108-109,  136-138,  177,  247-248, 
314-315,  344-345,  364-365,  444. 

Reason,  60-61,  89,  92,  169,  171-172,  303, 
306-307,  310-311,  370-377. 

Reasoning,  24,  54,  224,  444. 

Reflex  Use  of  Intuition,  27-30,  35,  52-57, 
327-328,  435. 

Regulative  Principles,  16-18,  36-37,  45, 
242,  295-296,  306-307. 

Reid,  18,  92-94,  118,  128,  142,  209,  239, 
279,  289,  290,  302. 

Relations,  211-241,  319, 

Relativity,  Theory  of,  109,  128,  209-210, 
340-341, 

Resemblance,  223-224,  See  Generaliza- 
tion, 

Responsibility,  390-392, 400.  See  Obliga- 
tion, 


Saisset,  110. 

Scepticism,  49-50,  115-117,  327-335, 

Schelling,  29,  62,  75,  82,  154,  275,  327, 

438. 
Schleiermacher,  412,  438. 
Schoolmen,  137-138,  169. 
Self,  Knowledge  of,  127-134,  154-155,  208, 

212,  384,  389-390,  399. 
Self-evidence,  31-32,  40,  83,  89,  92,  190, 

203,  282,  332, 


448 


INDEX. 


Sensation,  117-120,  122,  SlY. 
Sensational  School,  4,  101,  124,  243,  287- 

288,  384. 
Senses,    and    Sense-Perception,    101-127, 

156-160,  317. 
Shaftesbury,  91,  248,  289. 
Sin,  257-261,  417,  425,  439. 
Singulars.     See  Individuals. 
Smith,  Adam,  253. 
Socrates,  47,  55,  290,  312. 
Sophists,  47. 
Space,  16,  56,  74,  94,  109-110,  112,  125, 

156-157,  176-186, 196-198,  218-220,  363, 

368. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  344-347. 
Spinoza,  62,  66,  143-144,  149,  394,  397. 
Spirit,    144-146,    151,    163:164,    219-220, 

389-393,  398. 
Spontaneous  Convictions,   35,  37-41,  45, 

49,  52-57,  210,  296-298,  327,  335. 
Stewart,  D.,  95,   109,  128,  178,  183,  239, 

277,  289,  302,  361,  366. 
Stoics,  48,  85,  287. 
Subjective  and  Objective,   25-26,  38,  73, 

308-309,  357. 
Substance,    140-154,     183,    224,    229-230, 

234-237,  368-369,  383,  389,  423. 
Synthesis,  216. 
Synthetic  Judgments,  214-215,  304,  361. 


Teutullian,  341. 
Testimony,  271. 
Tests  of  Intuition,  31-34,  57,  68,  20S   282, 

300,  346. 
Theistic  Argument,  198-199,  235-238.  255» 

296,  377-389. 
Theology,  370-442. 
Time,  16,   66,  74,   94,   197-198,  220-222, 

368. 
Trendelenburg,  178. 


Unconditioned,  335-338. 
Understanding,  60,  306. 
Uniformity  of  Nature,  227,  239-241. 
Universal  Truth,  22-23,  33-34,  43-44,  47, 

284.     See  Catholicity. 
Utilitarianism,  262-264. 


Veitch,  Prof.,  88,  173. 


Whately,  135,  136,  444. 
Webb,  Prof.,  89,  284. 
Whewell,  Dr.,  97,  221,  300,  369. 
Whole  and  Parts,  216-218,  368. 
Will,    164-165,    242,    246-247,    256,    259, 
266-270,  399-400,  418-419. 


AA    000  807  7943 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


UCT2  6  1973. 

.\itt  ■:  .    •'-'  -  ■ 

^«^  1  hWs 

MAR  u4  laCB 

AUG  1  ^   19/9 

SEP  14  W* 

^"^f- 19  1978 

CI  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

